


Signal

by ElCuervo



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow, RWBY
Genre: Crossover, Gen Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22538038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElCuervo/pseuds/ElCuervo
Summary: The Meisters and the Protectorate each have their own ways of supporting superheroes, yet despite everything that makes them the best? Despite the best equipment, the best training? Sometimes there is simply no victory in strength.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	1. Overture

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to [xbritomartx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xbritomartx/works), also known as maroon-sweater. I don't know what I would have done without her revisions and help.
> 
> Also, thanks to [DsylexicWofl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DsylexicWofl/pseuds/DsylexicWofl).

_Dear Headmaster,_

_First and foremost I would like to praise the successful inception of the Meisters as a branch of the Bundespolizei. It has certainly shown to be a laudable cause. While I support the efforts, today we have received a distress call from your forces through our satellites, courtesy of Hero. I have personally reviewed the audio logs, and would like to ask why is it that we received a cross continental distress call directly from the personal number of a Meister, while your branch has maintained radio silence for the last hour? If the distress call was an error, I will be glad to add it to our logs, but we take such matters seriously, and from what I gather of the calls submitted, this was no human error._

_We would request a swift reply._

A girl dressed in bright red leapt from a building into the ruined streets of Kreuzberg.

That girl was a Meister; if the bright red she wore wasn’t a dead giveaway, the first-rate military gear would have been. The little red heroine fired two rounds before crumbling into a twister of rose petals.

Above, both shots missed their mark, a man in a white suit, who disappeared from view.  
  
A split second later the petal storm reformed into her normal self, standing in the middle of the street. She scrambled for her radio—calling for backup, most likely.

It didn’t give her the time to notice the small point of light behind her, from which sprung petite, lean girl in a black bodysuit. Even less time to react to the kick that landed in the small of her back.  
  
The red one screamed in pain. She twisted around to hit her enemy with the butt of the rifle, striking air as her opponent disappeared, only to appear again, this time from her side, to aim a kick directly at her temple. She missed and the kick overshot as the red Meister split into a burst of rose petals.  
  
A police motorcycle raced down the street towards the duo. Riding it was a Meister in yellow bike gear, with a lady in white behind her. The one in yellow picked up her teammate with one hand, and jumped off the motorcycle, launching it towards a building and landing with the teammate in her arms.

Not just any random building.

Seeing a figure fall from the ensuing crash made it clear she did it in a desperate attempt to flush out another enemy.

The red one had been surrounded and outnumbered three-to-one, but now they had evened the odds. 

From the wreckage of a destroyed motorcycle and debris a figure stood up, a pale brunette in a red dress. Where her fingers touched the debris would melt and liquefy, only to be reshaped into a spear.

It was obvious to the Meisters who they were dealing with now.

The Fang. No doubt hired to make their lives harder once more, and now in the middle of a possible crisis. Perhaps even using the fight to pull away resources from somewhere else, somewhere important.

They had to have a goal with this after all.

The man in white and the girl in black were probably Torchwick and Neopolitan. They had been around long enough to have a consistent record of their modus operandi, even if they had eluded capture attempts several times.

The woman in the red dress was new, no villain like that until today.  
  
The Meister in yellow removed her helmet, revealing blonde hair, and dashed towards the villain. She was met with a spear to the chest that should have punched straight through. Instead, it fell to the ground harmlessly and shattered.  
  
The blonde launched strikes, punches followed by swift low kicks, and the brunette would circle around her, transform debris into weapons to parry each strike, even when said weapons would shatter in one blow. A heavy jab landed on a tower shield created by the villain, yet it left a perfectly circular hole, rather than shattering it as one might have expected.

Behind them, a circle of frost developed many feet around the Meister in white, as she did her best to fend off Neopolitan while drifting away from the deadly fight her yellow teammate had engaged in. The red Meister had used her power to enter a building, where the flashes and roars of shots fired made it evident that she was engaged in a fight with Torchwick.  
  
The blonde suddenly turned around and quickly backhanded nothing as she disengaged from the villain.  
  
Her arm had certainly hit something, and as it did a young man appeared from thin air, falling flat on his ass. She didn’t waste any time going back into attempting to pulverize the pale skinned brunette. This time, it proved to be much more of an effort, as the young man kicked the floor with enough force to make her lose her footing, propelling himself into being upright and back into the fight.  
  
She caught herself just in time to sweep the legs of both villains from underneath them, then delivering an uppercut that would have ended the brunette right then and there, were it not for the man kicking her arm while he was still in midair. Redirecting her strikes.

The Yewllow Meister was forced to go on the defensive, dodging the man’s attacks by inches while focusing on the brunette and doing the best to remove her presence from the fight. Yet low kicks were met with lows kicks from the man, punches were met with swift high kicks. It put her in a position where she had to either dodge his strikes and lose ground, or take them and have her attacks miss entirely.

Amidst the fighting, a dark figure prowled between buildings. 

The blonde roared orders to attack, and the shadow answered. A Meister, a girl in black police gear leaped towards the man. He kicked her midsection and she went limp. A split second later, he realized his mistake as a duplicate struck his nose with a police baton, just before the original, now the duplicate, faded into oblivion. 

They were winning for a brief moment. But as fate would have it, the streets shook in protest that very moment. The battle came to a complete halt as rifts spread through the streets, growing wider every second. From within, a dark tendril emerged and struck the blonde, sending her through a building. Next was the brunette villain, snared and smacked into the concrete like a rag doll twice, she went limp and was dragged into the pit below. Inside the chasm glowing red eyes spread open, staring into the camera.  
  
I stopped the recordings then and there. I didn’t think I could stomach any more. Bits and pieces from the local German authorities that weren’t the Meisters, sent to us half an hour ago, collected from security cameras, helicopters, bodycams, and compiled by us, by the talented men and women of the Protectorate, all within fifteen minutes.

It was still hard to ignore the fact that they were not ready for this.

Even though the video was paused, the thing, whatever it was still seemed to be staring at me. I turned my attention to the message that was waiting for me.

_To Director Costa-Brown, from the Federal Police Meister Branch Administrator_

_Thank you for the display of authority. We have always found your organization to be worthy of our utmost consideration, so we once again thank you for decisively reciprocating. We do after all, believe in the values of leading the world further into a brighter future with parahumanity's aid. We appreciate your eagerness to provide assistance in German matters, as well as the effectiveness of your subordinates, such as the great Hero. Nonetheless we would like to inform that the situation is under our complete control._

_I know your organization has enjoyed a high degree of freedom in regards to interfering with forgein matters, but rest assured, we have our best and brightest already on the scene. Our intention is the prospect of furthering cooperative efforts, and I am confident in our organization's ability to suppress threats within our own territory._

_Sincerely yours_

_Administrator of the Meister Branch from Bundespolizei_

_Headmaster Ozpin_


	2. Hero A-Side

_Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to work night number seven. That’s right! This is the seventh consecutive night taking apart pieces of a single ruined jetpack just to keep myself busy. Oh what’s that? Another board completely fried into oblivion? Well let’s not get ahead of ourselves here! Maybe, just maybe, before madness sets in we can find out if this one will have at least one transistor ... left._ _  
__  
__Well, would you look at that._

It was nice when all the pieces finally clicked together.  
  
Circuits were beyond repair, but the materials would be useful. He placed a board under the hydraulic crane-like arm that held his Sonic Saw. An aluminum sphere housed atop a mess of wires. Rebecca hadn’t liked the name considering it didn’t look like a regular, or circular saw, but he’d maintained that what mattered was the purpose of the tool, and "disassembler microphone" didn't sound very good at all. Didn't even roll off the tongue. With the press of a button the machine responded with a high pitched buzz, copper, aluminum and gold were separated from plastic

The gray visor he built was almost the same as his own, so finishing it was easy enough, almost like instinct. Hell, he was _almost_ sure he could have done it with a hand behind his back and no microscope. The display connector clicked into the custom board, the Heads Up Display lit with a pulse of faint golden light. Not too bright, and the gold letters looked good.

Leaning back in his chair, he stopped just as his back flared with a twinge, took a deep breath for what felt like the first time in a long while and looked around his workshop. The bright fluorescent lights reminded him of several emergency rooms and that was the end of that train of thought. He realized he’d kept his eyes open too long and forced them shut.

_Maybe just my mind wandering. Alone with work for too long, huh?_

He rubbed his eyes before opening them again, checking over the different helmets on the shelves.

The first was the bulky all gold helm, last year's model, and that one brought a smirk to his face. He ended up ditching it for the blue one mostly because it didn’t make him feel like a Hollywood Merit award with a Protectorate emblem on its shoulder when coupled with the golden armor. Still, the blue helm needed a new paint job since it could use a few gold streaks here and there.  
  
The batteries and ammunition were stored in boxes and relegated to a corner of the room for convenience. As was the arsenal of guns he'd made that thankfully, rarely ever had to come down from their places on the wall, and were pretty outdated at this point. Just memories, really.

Finally, his eyes came to rest on what remained of his previous armor. Most of it was virtually unusable thanks to last mission, and in the midst of chaos the damaged jetpack left him burned in multiple spots after that close call. Now all that was left was the chest piece, left gauntlet and boots spread across a second metal table, all scrap now. 

The golden suit would be missed, but it _had_ been overdue for an upgrade anyway. And after the sketches, and the experimental suit he, Michael and the PR team put together just the other day, he was kind of excited to try the blue armor with gold accents. 

That suit was already complete. The Integrated jetpack should have faster response time now, the disengage function _should_ work, and it was an excuse to test a brand new reactive tuning field, targeting systems, utility slots and an adaptive battery with a higher capacity. All of that waiting for him in his room a couple of floors above.

Nick took the visor from his desk. It would let Rebecca gather even more information than usual. Sometimes, things that didn’t seem like they mattered to him were key pieces of information.

Walking towards the blast door, he remembered to put his golden visor back on. Funny that just like that, he was Hero. It didn’t look as good with jeans and a t-shirt, or even just in the bodysuit he became accustomed to wearing underneath, but chances were Todd and Beverly would still be stationed outside his workshop. Rebecca—as the PRT director—had ordered, almost _scared_ them into looking after him until he recovered. 

Even after he insisted that he’d be fine, ‘orders are orders’ they said, unless they had to leave him alone in his workshop, something he knew for sure was more out of the concern that everything in there might blow up if it was even looked at wrong. One retina scan later, the door opened.

Their continued presence in the hallway certainly wasn’t any surprise. Meeting them both still in the exact same pose they were when he disappeared into his lab, however, graced him with the mental image of the Director having paid a surprise visit, scaring them both stiff in the process.

“Todd, Beverly. Aren’t you two a little tired?” He put on a smile, and a light tone as he slightly puffed up his chest, and brought his free hand to his hip. It wasn’t their fault he got hurt after all, and being stuck with guard duty this late must really, really suck.

Todd looked at the guard besides him, then back to Hero. There was hesitation for a second.

“Absolutely not, sir!” 

“Well, I sure am very tired, and just finishing up this little piece here,” Hero expressed, raising the grey visor slightly. “I figured I’d take the elevator, give it to Alexandria over at the hero floor, then grab a bite at the cafeteria. What do you say we meet over there?”

Thankfully, the idea of having a casual lunch with a Protectorate member caught both off guard. He took his chance and walked towards the elevator, turning his back on them.

“Good! See you two soon!”

The elevator required two steps, both a palm scan, and a retina scan. Two layers of reinforced doors opened into the ceiling, and closed a moment after he stepped inside. He fumbled trying to press the elevator button, firmly pressuring the metal plate instead. Right arm was still a bit sore.

It didn’t take long until he was on their floor. The doors opened almost instantly, into the familiar living room. White walls almost entirely lit by recessed lights that reflected off the marble flooring. The monitors on Rebecca’s side of the room shifted from image to image, tracking different American cities, activities and news. In front of them was Rebecca, working at their mission computer, a giant piece of equipment, mounted on the wall and made to be used standing up.  
  
They each seemed to gravitate to the same parts of the room every time, always together but rarely in the same space.  
  
Just beside Rebecca’s corner of the room was the storage room and the open kitchen, made a distinct area with the help of the wooden table they so often neglected. David was sitting on the circular couch that stood in the center of the room, in front of a circular glass coffee table decorated by several Eidolon action figures and a large TV.

He glanced at Michael, who was looking for something in the fridge as David spoke up  
  
“Well look who’s finally here!” The sentence punctuated by the remote slowly floating to his hand, leaving afterimages in steady intervals.

“Some of us have to take the elevator, David,” Hero retorted, pointing at the elevator with his thumb.

“Yeah, yeah, and who’s fault is that, blondie? You’re the gadgeteer here, make the damn thing go faster, or better yet, make a teleporter like those guys over there” He turned back to the TV and switched channels, to some rerun of a cheesy 80’s sci-fi show where a character in red spandex typed into a bulky chest panel, fading out of the scene and into a new cheap set, complete with sound effects Hero was sure he’d heard a thousand times before in at least a dozen other shows.  
  
“What, so you can get the power to be everywhere at once?”  
  
“That… would be ideal”

Hero slowly shook his head, then removed visor as he walked over to the work station where Rebecca stood. She had taken off her visor and cape but still wore most of her black costume, stood with her back straight and hair swept to the side, like she usually would as Director Costa-Brown. 

“I still don’t know how the hell you manage to work so well in such a _shitty environment,_ ” He quipped, putting emphasis on ‘environment’ and receiving a vulgar gesture from David in return. “So, anything new?” 

“Eh, you learn to tune it out eventually. But Nicholas? You’re supposed to be resting.” She answered, glancing at him while still typing and somehow managing to make the statement as neutral as possible, even her face displayed nothing but stoicism.

“That’s _old_ news Becca, it’s not like two guards are going to stop me when they think my lab is scarier than your scowl. Plus, I feel fine already! Look, I even made this for you.” he pointed out, presenting the brand new visor. 

She stopped typing, looking at the brand new headpiece. Her face was a mask that betrayed no emotion. He was used to that, resigned himself to the knowledge that regarding her, there would be no response and body language was the best he was going to get sometimes. He wouldn’t blame her for it, it was probably a consequence of living a life as a professional hero now, or maybe it was all the stress. He just kinda wished things weren’t like that, when it made him feel like he was alone in a sound booth.  
  
One moment later she finally picked it from Nick’s hand with the same practiced caution he’d seen at least a hundred times in the past, holding it in front of her chest and with precision one would expect out of someone handling glass. Well, it was partially made of glass, but it was also made for Alexandria , it would take hundreds of high caliber rounds before it even cracked or started malfunctioning and that was his low estimate.

“Does it plug into my current suit?” she asked, snapping him out of that line of thought.

“Not only it does, but it has some new features.” Nick pointed at the accessory and smiled, to brighten up the mood a little despite his own weariness. “Picks up ambient radiation, thermal readings, can zoom into whatever you’re looking and has a real time three dimensional scanner. Best of all, it’s hands free, you just need to think about what you want and there it is!”

A few seconds later, she smiled. “So that’s what those scans were for, huh?” 

“Yeah, can’t map it to a brain I don’t know,” He poked his forehead at the word ’brain’. “Although, I did use some of Michael’s scans too now that I think about it.”

As she looked at him, Rebecca’s smile slowly fell from her face. He already knew what she was about to say before she spoke the words. 

“I wasn’t kidding when I said you need more rest. You’re tired, more so than you usually are after spending all that time in your workshop.” She poked his chest once, lightly, and just like that, she was back to the subject he’d like to bury.

“I’m _fine_ Becca, that’s just a sign I’m human. I always bounce back.”

“I had to carry you after your jetpack detonated. You lost consciousness three times along the way.”

He couldn’t help but frown at that, unsure if she was trying to maneuver him, or if it was legitimate worry. It was always hard to tell when she closed off like this. He decided not to assume the worst.

“And then I made a brand new suit and jetpack. I appreciate the concern, I really do, but I probably missed a ton of important things too.”

She sighed at that, then conceded, allowing the amused expression to show across her face 

“That, you did. Michael, come over here, show him the pictures,” He was sitting at the kitchen table, about to finish his strawberry sundae as Rebecca waved him over. Michael wore a brown jacket over his costume, and took a digital camera from it’s inner pocket, turned it on and fidgeted with the device, handing it over.

The first picture was one of Michael and an unknown, black haired man, a self portrait taken by him, at what seemed like a restaurant called 'Up Greek Creek'. The place was built with greek columns, it’s walls painted in a fashion similar to ancient jars, filled with classical figures in several food related reconstructions of greek tragedies.

“Is that a new place?” Nick grinned as he looked back to Michael. ”I suppose he’s the Arthur you’ve been telling us about for a month now?”

“It’s him! We’ve also been to ‘The Swan Song’ and ‘Foodemic’.” Michael tapped the ‘next’ button on the camera, showing a picture of the same couple on an outdoor restaurant. Behind them, a singer was on stage, wearing a white dress with gold embroidery. In the next picture, a post apocalypse themed restaurant, waiters and waitresses dressed in what seemed like a mixture of sports gear and punk fashion. “You guys should give them a try. Over at The Swan Song, they always feature a new singer once every week, the ambience is great.”

Nick chuckled at the idea, and at the unfortunate implications of both places.  
  
“Maybe we should, feels like forever since the last time we had some ‘Rest in Pizza’, don’t you think so, Becca?”

“I could go for some pizza, yeah.”

“I heard pizza. When's it getting here?” David asked, still focused on the TV.

“I was never a big fan of pizza,” Michael declared. “But I wouldn’t mind either.”

“So, what else did I miss?” Nick asked Rebecca, crossing his arms.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” she replied, managing what seemed to be five different screens at once. ”There was an explosive chain reaction that threatened to damage most of Portland, it was caused by Vortex and Shift. David caught them within five minutes.” 

She pointed to a screen at his side, where news showed pictures of the incident, along with a picture of Eidolon delivering both villains in a forcefield bubble each to a PRT team, and a shaky video of the incident, just outside the warehouse where the battle took place.

“Other than that, nothing the other Protectorate teams couldn’t handle. Nothing that would demand us.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Nick walked away from the computers, towards the open kitchen. ”So, how about getting out of this god forsaken place and hanging out?”

As if on cue, monitors at Rebecca’s side flashed red one after the other. Wincing, He mentally kicked himself for his timing. She stopped typing, and David turned off the TV as he got up from the couch.

“What’s the situation?” He asked, gravity of the unknown complication already forcing him to shift gears.

“Something in Berlin, started two hours ago,” Rebecca answered.  
  
“Two hours? We should have caught it a lot sooner, what happened?”  
  
“A group called The Fang attempted to kidnap two candidates running for mayor.”  
  
That got a collective annoyed grunt from Hero, Legend and Eidolon  
  
“Oh just great,” Hero said. “How the hell are they still around? I thought they had ‘em for good years ago after they breached the wall. The Fang was down to two people just last week.”

“Seems like they have some new recruit,” Rebecca answered, already bringing up several images of the incident. “They have at least one who can teleport, probably set up explosives a few hours in advance, then during today’s debate, detonated one, while trying to kidnap both candidates.” 

“Trying to spread the Meisters thin. And when that didn’t work they just kept blowing stuff up,” Hero assumed.  
  
“Exactly. Right now they want both,” Rebecca answered “They have candidate Leo Schmidt, and as we speak they are trying to get to Robyn Becker. The amount of explosives detonated so far suggests they were planning this for weeks, if not months in advance.”  
  
“But let me guess, that’s not why we were called, is it?” Hero asked, now pondering ”I’ve never heard a word from our vigilante friends since ‘91, and I sure as hell haven't heard anything from them since they started that Meister program.”.  
  
“you're right. Apparently within the last hour the Fang got some reinforcements of their own. A top team was present during the incident in Kreuzberg. It’s either someone, or some small group with some new kind of duplication powers, or creation powers. Whatever it is, this is not on record and is definitely highly destructive in nature.”

Alexandria clicked a button, and several videos popped up on three separate monitors. A building was being swallowed by a flaming dark mass. Another video revealed engorged viscous pieces of pavement spilling into several gaunt, humanoid minions that attempted to rush a barricade. One colossal dark manta ray, swimming through the air above the Alexanderplatz, surrounded by several black spots. One of it's 'wings' hit a building, splitting and caving it inwards. There was another video playing in Alexandria’s screen.

Whatever that was, she decided not to share it.  
  
“I’ll go put on my suit. As I do that, Alexandria, can you pull up a map?” Hero shouted, already having rushed off to the storage room.  
  
“Already have.”  
  
“Good, I want you to mark whatever places are swarming with those things as high priority, then send it to the guys in logistics downstairs, have them figure out where the other teams will be going while we’re on the scene. Eidolon, you’ll be teleporting everyone in while you help us, as always. How far did it spread, Alex?” Hero shouted as he put on the heavy chestpiece.  
  
“Map sent. Power doesn’t seem to have spread very far, it’s taken most of Kreuzberg and Mitte, and if the pattern continues, they'll be spreading twice as fast in half the time. Meister Command neglected to inform us candidate Becker’s current location”  
  
“I’ll be taking search and rescue then, I just got these sensors upgraded and this seems like the perfect situation to use them, you said one of the best teams were on-site in Kreuzberg, right? Well they have to have some vital info, so who was it?”  
  
“We don’t know their names for sure, but it seems their leader was named.... Rosenrot. One of the vigilantes we were talking about, the program had her unmask in public, she goes by Ruby Rose now.” Alexandria answered, searching the reports for more information.  
  
“I see. Well, then it’s a matter of getting both candidates to safety, making sure we evacuate as many people as we can, and then figuring out what’s the deal with those things. Alex, can you also mark for me the places with the biggest, baddest of those creations please? I think we can hit the jackpot and find the source of those things if we have you and Legend on search and destroy, just like the last mission. Well, hopefully not entirely like the last mission.” Hero said as he left the storage room, now in his full, blue and gold armor. He had his disintegration pistol on his armor’s thigh holster, the all purpose rifle on his back, and a few grenades on his belt.

“Hey, as long as _someone_ actually moves right when they say they’re moving right, there should be no more friendly fire incidents” Legend answered, sounding just a little too facetious.  
  
“And as long as someone actually starts studying sign language, they’d understand that it was the enemy who was supposed to misdirected,” Alexandria said, with heavy emphasis on the word ‘enemy’, glaring at Legend as she attached her visor and fastened the heavy black cape to her shoulders.  
  
“Hey now, let’s all calm down. We all know that was the least of our problems there," Hero retorted, laughing. "And hey Alex, at least Director Costa-Brown ended up not reviewing that footage, lucky you huh?”  
  
“Will someone actually tell me what happened last mission?” David asked, discombolulated by the lack of context.  
  
“Dude, you do not wanna know,” Legend warned him, his eyes going wide as he put his domino mask and removed his jacket.

“Fine,” David grumbled the word, embittered.

A flash engulfed David, slowly from head to toe. As it dissipated he was already in full costume.  
  
“Do you have to do that every single time?” Alexandria asked, still irked.

“Everyone ready? Earpieces on?” Hero inquired.  
  
“Ready.” Alexandria, Legend and Eidolon announced in unison. 

“Ready when you are, Eidolon,” Hero said, preparing his jetpack.  
  
He arrived at the scene with a flare of light, Eidolon’s power having teleported him a few hundred feet above ground. Now it would be a matter of finding the people he needed to look for.  
  
Traversing the air above old-fashioned architecture, and despite the fact he could hear sirens in the distance, the spot he’d been teleported to was terribly absent of fighting or people. Too quiet, so he turned his focus towards his scanners. With a thought, and a little bit of focus they were onscreen.

It was sort of like playing a game of Marco Polo in those regards. Except in this game everything answered polo, just in different tones. Everything had its own frequency, it’s own unique sound for him, for those scanners. It was what allowed him to map several square feet per second, let him know how many people were in the immediate area, inside a given building, or track one person in the middle of a crowd. It pulsed, a quiet, brief wave that returned with silence. No one nearby. 

He continued his search, roaming between buildings for long minutes, until the heads up display pinged a location, overlaying it on top of the regular helmet feed in a secondary, smaller screen.

The fighting was approaching him faster than he was flying towards it, a Meister, a girl in white, standing on the shoulder of a hulking knight made entirely of ice. It carried a large sword, and left a trail of frost where it stepped.  
  
A colossal shadow slithered between buildings, first to the right, breaking into a building’s first floor, then emerging from the second floor, diving in an attempt to swallow the meister and knight whole. It was easier to see what it was now: a giant serpent, it’s body was a patchwork of flesh covered in osseous, almost calcified armored scales. The knight swung it’s sword wide in an arc above it's head, and separated the top half of the serpent’s head from its body. 

The serpent fell to the ground, and at first Hero assumed the violent convulsions were dying spasms. As it’s flesh bubbled and the top half of its head slithered off towards storm drains he collected his thoughts, drawing his disintegration pistol. Two golden shots hit their mark; one on the body, the other on the detached half. Where they hit golden marks spread across the body, devoured it into nothingness. 

The building, he noticed as the beast crumbled, was a police station, and his radar picked up eight more signals in the basement below.

The Meister was a young woman, wearing a broken porcelain mask and a plain white dress. Her belt contained a decorative rapier and a police radio. The platinum white hair in a ponytail was odd at first, but he assumed it was either one of those new temporary hair color sprays things, or a power thing. Neither would be odd to him, really, not after witnessing Rebecca using hers as a razor during one mission. Or David’s attempt with exotic hair fashion.

_No, not Rebecca, not David, damn it! Alexandria and Eidolon. When in costume, always say and think Alexandria, Legend and Eidolon._

The broken mask was apparently bothering her, as she removed and tossed it aside, revealing a deep scar over the cloudy left eye.

The giant, fifteen foot knight that almost lumbered with the Meister on its shoulder was a creature of its own. The bulky white armor was smooth and opaque, it wore a spartan helmet without plumes, and carried a sword that was about half its size. Were it normal sized, it would have been well within acceptable measurements for practicality sake. As it was, Hero doubted any normal person would be able to lift, let alone swing such a thing. Underneath the thick armor, his helmet could only detect more ice. 

He floated down towards the Meister, switching his pack to the low power mode. It would make him float and drift as if he was in low gravity, but there was no immediate threat, and it helped save the battery when he wasn’t entirely sure how long he’d have to fight for.

“Hi, do you speak english, by any chance? My german is a little rusty, it’s been a while.”  
  
“Yes, all Meisters do,” She said, bluntly.  
  
“Oh thank god," He sighed the words in relief. “I’m Hero, what’s your name?”

“I’m Agent Aria, and I had that under control," She retorted. “If you excuse me, I have to return to check up or I'll be penalized. Orders from command, my apologies.” The knight started moving, before Hero called out.  
  
“Whoa wait a second there Aria, I’m here to help! Didn’t mean to step on anyone’s toes, it’s just that it seems there’s one person left on the basement over there, and they seem to be fighting-”

“What? I can’t get in there, it’ll do more harm than good.” She stated, an acknowledgment of a fact, with zero doubt behind the words. The knight slowly planted its sword on the asphalt, stabbing it a good two or three feet into the ground

“That’s fine, I’ll go in and get them out as fast as I can, then you can take them to wherever Meister rendezvous is. Deal?”

Between his question and her answer, he glanced at the numbers that seemed to diminish in response. As they did, the ones remaining expanded in size, surrounding a human-sized point.

“Deal.” She answered.

Without missing a beat, he fired the jetpack to full blast. Flying through the station, above the mess of chairs, papers and broken tables in the main lobby, he couldn’t help but notice the giant hole to the above floor, where the serpent had busted through. The door to the back was easy enough to find, as was smashing through a barricade of file cabinets, desks and a sofa. No dead body in sight. Odd, for the circumstance, yet the number in his visor caught his attention once again. Two left, one human sized, the other, not so much.

Finding the spiral staircase to the level below, he flew through the empty space in the middle and landed in the concrete below. No time to decelerate, it was easier to use the reactive field and tune for the impact as he shoulder tackled the concrete floor. The staircase’s handrail resonated with a low hum in response as he flew by, but the concrete and the armor were left unharmed.

His back flared in agony nonetheless, and it wasn’t because of the shock.

It was a garage, he noticed. One of the types where the entrance might be a ramp somewhere at ground level. Near the other end of the garage, he noticed a blonde Meister in yellow gear under the fluorescent light.

She was fighting a lopsided, top-heavy humanoid mess of arms on two legs. It followed a similar pattern to the serpent above, with the stitched together look, the darkened and putrid flesh, but the bone-like armor only protected a small and almost human skull that sat in what he assumed should be it’s chest. It clawed at her, attempts to both slash, pull, and strike all at once. As it did so it’s balance shifted with every attack, the Meister dodged and weaved under it’s every move, unharmed.

In the time between seconds, the blonde threw a punch to the head, fast enough to hit the target dead on, an attempt to end the fight then and there, no doubt. Upon contact, it shattered the armor, the entire upper body unfolded into five different pieces, a red sac inside spit a stream of black gas to her face. 

The next moment, the blonde was on the floor, choking and coughing. Hero flew towards her, low to the ground. Digging his heels into the concrete just as he caught her, he reversed direction while leaving a grenade in her spot behind them. Before it detonated, they were already outside, back on the front door.

The pain on his back dimmed, slowly. He looked at the girl in his arms, and slight panic set in upon realizing she was unconscious, then waned once he realized she was still breathing. The Meister sitting on the knight’s shoulder spat a curse in german.

“What happened?” She asked, standing up while holding onto the knight’s helmet.

“She was hit by some sort of gas.”  
  
“Hmpf,” The Meister sneered. “Then I say give it time. I’ve seen her bounce back from worse.”

“Are you sure about that? It seemed pretty bad.”

“She wouldn't be on the top of the Leaderboard if she couldn’t take it,” She shot back, and he could feel a small amount of contempt, not directed at him, or the girl either. Were Meisters fighting among themselves? “Here, let me carry her.” She said, as the knight extended one arm, to carry the blonde.

“I was told Ruby Rose and her team were on-site where those things first appeared.” He floated up to the knight, leaving the girl in it’s arm and hovering a bit higher, so he could talk to the Meister face to face. “And they’re the ones who saved Robyn, right? I’m here to search and rescue, get them and candidate Schmidt out here if the worst comes to worst. Evacuate as many people as possible.”  
  
“Did Meister Command not inform you? I am a part of her team, and so is Yang over here. We have one more, Blake, but she disappeared too.”

She paused for a long moment, looking at the unconscious teammate in the knight's arms, then continuing.

“But Command seems to be way past orders to assist evacuation now, seeing how they cut communications while you were in there. Guess they realized we wouldn’t be able to evacuate all of Kreuzberg anyways, and that’s without the Grimm hunting people down and assimilating them.”

“The what now.”  
  
“Grimm. Command needed a name for those things, and they’re calling them Grimm.”

“And geez, assimilating? I’m sorry we didn’t know this was happening.”

“Well, that sounds typical of Command. Bad intel. Expecting us to pull weight we just can’t.”

“Is that a common thing?” He asked, and she nodded in response.  
  
”I’m afraid so. I don’t know much that could be of use, and Ruby? She was fighting Torchwick, to recover Robyn before the first one forced us to split.” 

“Anything could help. Do you remember where that was?”

“I think it was near Checkpoint Charlie. She hasn't answered the radio since, I don’t even know if she’s alive.” She lowered her head as something seemed to click, crossed her arms and switched her tone to a more measured and deliberate way of speaking that felt eerily familiar to Hero. “I could not disobey orders. She ordered me to run, so I ran away as fast as I could. Then Command ordered us to set up a barricade with the police as they sounded the alarms. You can look around you to see how well that went”

He did so. Buildings were either empty, dark or ruined. At least one had been the victim of an explosion, courtesy of The Fang, with heavy casualties considering his helmet wasn’t picking up any signs of life nearby. He took a moment, then spoke up.

“Well, that’s already something. Maybe the rest of your team is somewhere around there,” Not a lot of info but it was something already.” Well, Aria, I guess this is goodbye then, you did say you have to return to your post.”  
  
The knight was about to pick up it’s sword as it stopped. She stared at the teammate it held in it’s arm, once again deep in thought, and let her arms fall to her side.  
  
“I’m not going back there. They want us to kill as many as possible, but I’ve lost count of how many of those things I’ve killed. It didn’t go anywhere.”

“How so?”

“The numbers they gave me and the numbers I faced don’t match up. But... Yang could have died and I wouldn’t even have known about it. I need to see my team again, I don’t think I can keep going without them.”

They heard a light giggle coming from the blonde.

“Aww, how sweet, princess. But you gotta ‘ _see’_ the irony in that,” Yang said, having woken up at some point during their brief conversation, now stretching her back.

“Oh please. If you wanna talk about not seeing things, at least I have an excuse. How many times did they take you down today again? I’m pretty sure when I don’t see your name on the Leaderboard anymore, it won’t be because of a bad eye.” She said, leaning towards Yang, and pointing to her cloudy left eye.

“Hey! Those penalties are bullshit!” The Meister in yellow retorted, provoked by the remark. “And the Grimm are cheating, alright Weiss? If I knew it could spit gas outta nowhere, I would have tried something else, but none of them did anything like that until just now.” 

Watching them banter like that, Hero couldn’t stop the grin that briefly escaped. Then, his eyes went wide when just like his jetpack detonating last mission, a realization hit him. 

“Wait, what did you say?” He asked, now flying down to where the one in yellow, Yang, was.

“That they’re cheating! And they are!” She answered, agitated once again when ‘Weiss’ scoffed at her. “One hour of fighting the damn things in between check ups and not one of them did anything other than claw, bite or grab. Maybe they’d try to run or hide if it was a smart one.”

He flew a few feet away, scrambling for the earpiece button on his helmet, and upon finally finding it, pressed the damned thing with a little more force than he needed to.

“Alexandria this is Hero, how do you hear me? I have something I need to report”  
  
“I hear you, five by five. Busy at the moment, Nuker threat.”

Five by five meant a perfect signal, but he couldn’t recognize the power classification.  
  
“Alexandria, could you repeat that last part?”  
  
“Nuker, attacks in a large area”  
  
“Oh, a Shaker?”  
  
“No, it attacks at range”

“So a Blaster.”  
  
“No, the enemy attacks at range and in a large area”  
  
“Why not just call it a Blaster-Shaker?”  
  
“Not the point! Report!”

“Made contact with part of Ruby’s team. One member reports a change in these creations, I witnessed it myself. There’s a chance they’re adapting, and seeing how you’re fighting a Blaster/Shaker, it’s true for more than one of them. And they attack indiscriminately. ”

“Yes, the Nuker I’m currently engaged in fighting with is certainly not what was described in the emergency threat reports.” He heard the sound of something crashing, both in his commlink and somewhere in the distance. “I think I can piece this together with a little more time. Alexandria out.”

Persistent and confident, like always. He turned his attention back to the Meisters behind him, and heard them talking.

“Of course I’ll keep speaking in english, that way ‘eye’ get to use a brand new arsenal of puns.” Yang said, behind him.

Aria, or Weiss, as Yang called her, kept speaking german, and it took Hero a while to understand it.

“Stop distracting! I was worried, ok? I thought you were hurt. What if I had to carry you all the way back? What if _you_ die-” her voice cracked a bit as she continued to speak, but Hero wasn’t listening anymore. He already felt like a massive jackass for overhearing, and now even more so, for what he heard.

“Oh please. Weiss, when I do, you’ll know it. I’ll be going out with a ‘Yang’.” She answered, way too amused with herself. When she addressed him, Hero turned around. “Hey, you’re Hero, from the Protectorate right? You didn’t happen to see a few extra motorcycles downstairs, did you?”

“Oh no, you are not pulling that again!” Weiss protested, although Hero didn’t know whatever ‘that’ was.

“Relax, Ice Queen. That was an emergency. I’m thinking we’re gonna need something to help you and me guide him in record time.”

The blonde pointed at him with a thumbs up and a smile beaming from her face. He smiled back, for the sake of kindness. She continued.

“It’s sort of like a game of capture the flag, right? It’s my favorite. Whoever has both candidates wins, it’s just that the field itself is trying to kill us now.”

“That’s one way of framing it.” Hero replied, amused at the idea.

“Well, I think I know just where Ruby would be holed up during this crisis. It’s a shot in the dark, but I’m ninety percent sure i’m right” She turned to face her teammate, for confirmation.

“Ninety percent?” Weiss challenged, crossing her arms.

“Okay, eighty percent. It’s an old hideout, from before we took down the wall. Weiss, with the Protectorate here, we have the advantage now. If they can take Robyn to safety, then The Fang can’t win, having both candidates as hostages is the reason they caused this mess in the first place.”

“We’ll be free to look for the source of these Grimm or kill them all, and find wherever they’re keeping Leo,” Weiss said, then shifted her tone, almost as a warning. “But you know that Ozpin will deal more than just a few penalties for this, right? Just making sure you know.” 

“Who cares about penalties? Or about what Oz thinks he can do?” Yang answered, throwing her arms to the side. “Last I saw them Team Juniper was patrolling Mitte, so there’s no chance The Fang moved already.”

“Why not?” Hero asked. He was almost sure he’d heard the name before.

“Team Juniper used to be a vigilante team.” Yang said, smiling while she played with the zipper of her jacket. “Nowadays, they’ve been at the top of the Meister Leaderboard since the program started. They’re half the reason we got the Fang down to just two members until last week, and that’s not all they’ve done for us.”

“More like they’re still obsessed with that leaderboard.” Weiss retorted, clear sorrow in every word.  
  
“Weiss!” The blonde shouted, outraged at her teammate, receiving a grumbled apology in return.

There wasn’t much to consider. The one in yellow, Yang, had a point. If she suspected where their leader might be, even if she was wrong, it would still be a better plan than Hero patrolling alone, hoping he’d stumble across their objective. Sure, it wasn’t perfect or bulletproof, but it was a plan. It was better than barging into another country to help only to then end up working alone, like he almost did.

He spoke after a few seconds. This time the smile on his face was real.

“Lead the way.”


	3. Rebecca B-Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for severe Jetpack detonation injuries at the third paragraph, nothing too graphic, but still

Hero was happy, of course, but she knew his happiness was forced, and his smiles were empty.

She knew he still blamed himself when it wasn’t his fault. Saw it in his eyes back at HQ, and in the wounds he so desperately tried to hide. Those were still fresh in her mind, as was everything after she got her powers.

Dark purple where the armor’s exhaust was struck and nearly caved his ribs in. Red and Black where the Jetpack detonated and almost took a chunk of his lower back with it. Red streaks where shrapnel dug into well defined muscle, into his right triceps. Red running from his scalp, through the golden hair on the back of his head.

They were terrible companions to his gold and blue. Unsightly. Wrong.

Every time he lost consciousness, the fear it would be perpetual gave rise to panic she concealed and covered with no small amount of effort.

All because he’d trusted her call without hesitation. She hadn’t expected him to, given their past lack of synergy, his accusatory looks, frowns and mistrust when she would present a plan. The chances of distress were low and yet it happened nonetheless. And after it did, she was forced to drop him into the emergency room. She knew it was one of the few places he detested. 

Those were the thoughts that elapsed through her mind, between the ticks of a second, after she shut off her earpiece.

Having locked herself still in the air with her flight Alexandria crossed her arms and surveyed the situation.

Faraway in the distance, Legend awaited for her to make the first move. He was firing a salvo at something on the ground, she couldn’t tell what. His team was most likely spread across Mitte, minimizing the number of creations until further notice.

A colossus lumbered towards a minor team. It was an uneven insectile carapace, covered in growths that resembled fungi and spores; despite their fleshy composition. It walked with eight disproportionately long legs that ended in engorged lumps of spikes pointing in every direction.

Her subordinates -- Puzzle, Mirage, Recovery and Errata-- would save bystanders. They had prepared the place just as she ordered. Civilians in the immediate premises were evacuated, and the ones who couldn’t be evacuated were protected inside a building guarded by Puzzle, the hero in a minimalistic black costume. He created layers and layers of prismatic force fields that refracted anything that went through, expanding with time. Within the minute, he had already covered the building as well as five others.

They couldn’t evacuate the thousands and thousands in the neighborhood, so the next best option was to contain the damage, use precision strikes, as it would save more lives. On the ground underneath a heroine, Mirage, used her power; it shrouded the rest of their team from view as long as they remained near each other. 

Alexandria prepared for the inevitable counter attack. Once harmed it would release spores into the air, same as it would on it’s own if left alone. Her visor had only picked up carbon, water, as well as metals and minerals that wouldn’t be out of place in a city, but the gas itself was heavy and clung to surfaces, slowly solidifying, consuming, growing and producing new instances of enemies they’d have to fight. 

She had to be the one to attack, not Legend. Because if it felt a foe was attacking at a distance it would release spores into the air again, and that would go against containing the damage.

Spearing downwards she crashed into the shell with overwhelming force. Asphalt cracked and split, bone-like armor crumbling underneath her, toppling the five story tall giant. One of its legs snapped under the pressure, hurled away by the sheer force through one of Puzzle’s fields, then violently changing course upwards as it went through five other layers and landed back atop the monstrosity.

The body still spasmed, attempting to get back on its feet, releasing spores that would follow her. She stomped on it twice more and it went still, but it didn’t stop the process. One spore almost touched her shoulder, and it erupted into a dense cloud that would try to suffocate her.

She used her cape to fan off the gas, and took off.

As she predicted, not a single spore failed to follow her into the air. One kilometer away and bombarding something else entirely Legend split his barrage into two. It turned at an angle towards the sky, then followed Alexandria and split again behind her, hitting their mark and setting off every spore without fail. With no surface to cling to the dark cloud quickly dissipated.

Without a moment wasted the team was already moving to contain and destroy what remained of the body. Good, then her orders were still on their mind. People wouldn’t have to worry about being devoured by giant monstrosities, for now.

With the immediate threat gone and the possibility of even more lives lost out of her mind for the moment, Alexandria could put her mind to work on the problem at large. The one that was still outside their context. 

Gazing at the outburst of fierce beams Legend fired at streets so far away, she pushed her mind in an effort that made it possible to follow the soot and dust that strong winds carried, the scene now unraveling frame by frame in her mind.  
  
Alexandria pressed the button of her earpiece, the commlink to her leader. Before the connection sound was born and died, she could think a thousand thoughts.

_Evolving as a response. Surroundings. Enemies. Not necessarily in that order or requiring contact. Assimilating through consumption to grow._

They were being watched at all times then. There were no bodies because they were being devoured and made into beasts.

The fallen foe was proof of that, reacting to harm and attacking at range was a response to close quarters, attacking through venom and gas was one to direct forms of defense. The composition included flesh, bone, concrete and steel, all things they gathered through a massive body count and deliberate destruction of the environment. 

Were the initial waves dying on purpose? To gauge their strength?  
  
No team reported engaging with anything like this either. If they were just power creations that would be one thing, but this? Simply attacking as many as they could wouldn’t cut if their enemies stumbled across arsenals of magic bullets stacking the deck against heroes.

In a situation like this, it was best to go back to ground zero. Checkpoint Charlie. Ruby Rose, the one who had called for their aid. The first sighting, all happening in a short window of time. If this was something The Fang released, then stopping it might be a trick they had up their sleeves.  
  
 _So why is it that they haven't used it as leverage? For a group that started this after trying to kidnap two candidates running for mayor, why were no demands being broadcast?_

There were good chances that Meisters were still in pursuit of The Fang, trampling each other for a spot on their famous Leaderboard, where the best of the best were offered free access to resources other teams would need months before they were cleared for usage.

Wherever The Fang was, she would find and question them. Their last altercation was with Ruby Rose’s team. She’d seen it on video, and there was no chance that they were able to flee Kreuzberg. Too many Meisters locking down U-Bahn stations and controlling the flow outside Kreuzberg and Mitte.

The second passed, but there was no response from the commlink. Odd.  
  
Another second went by. One too many, their personal commlinks didn’t require input from the receiver, only the broadcaster. The maximum delay according to Hero was one seventieth of a second, and she was yet to experience anything close to that after almost a full year of missions. Worrisome.

A response didn’t come, so she turned off her earpiece and flew towards Legend, who by now had annihilated whatever laid in the ground. He noticed her approaching, and closed a good portion of the distance himself, sparing her the seconds it would have taken otherwise.  
  
“So, what did Hero say?” He asked, then examined the area briefly, looking for another target, maybe.  
  
“For now? Nothing. No response.”  
  
“You’re thinking he’s compromised?” Legend asked, slight surprise in his tone.  
  
“He didn’t seem to be during our last call. I’m thinking something is blocking communication all across the place, just took The Fang awhile to block ours because it’s not a frequency they use.”  
  
“Let’s split then, cover more ground,” Legend said.

“What changed?”

“A few heroes reported back,” He answered. “ It seems like more than a few Meisters are nearing their breaking point. I’ll take over the next containment push, you find whatever is jamming our comms. Agreed?”

She hesitated for a moment. Legend would be a better choice, because this would most likely require dealing with Meisters, a task she’d rather avoid and he was the more approachable of the two, but she could be working with false or incomplete information, and if so, then first hand experience would make for better results.

“Agreed.”

Legend nodded and floated down to the team beneath them, to aid in incinerating the body. Above in the air Alexandria put her thoughts in order.  
  
Meisters. The project that had absorbed Germany's vigilante teams after they breached the wall, after Germany deemed that they had fulfilled their purpose. It was advertised as somewhat of a hero school.

Alexandria had been there for some of it, it was before the Protectorate and before they breached the wall. Most of her efforts were to deter assassination attempts during protests. The Doctor had even provided aid in that front, handing powers to key players during those years. People like Robyn. It had assured their victory, and Germany had a couple of heroes added to it’s numbers thanks to it. Not so much in Robyn’s case, but that was a different arrangement, at the time.

She could remember thinking the authorities announcing the Meister project not one year later was a gutsy move to say the least.

Their headquarters were a somewhat recent addition to Mitte, an underground bunker facility near the Alexanderplatz, created after one too many murder attempts targetting Meisters and their families. During a situation like this it would be heavily guarded, so chances were that The Fang would avoid it, especially after detonating so many bombs and being the source of thousands of casualties like this the police would be opening fire on sight.

If the videos submitted earlier that day were accurate, Ruby Rose and her team were chasing The Fang from the Friedrichshain district, deeper into Kreuzberg, possibly so they could then surround and capture them in a single act with the help of Team Juniper. 

Team Juniper, the team locals praised, yet was conspicuously absent from the reports received by the Protectorate. Apparently with their hands full patrolling Mitte at the moment. She didn’t quite expect them to still be around, especially considering how years ago before they helped breach the wall their leader had been a powerless young man, and she didn’t know if that had changed at any point.

Only one place for The Fang to go, and Hero was in the area, searching for candidate Robyn. If his gear was still functioning despite the current setback, then he was likely close, and they would be able to get the candidate to safety in a matter of minutes, if he hadn't done so already.

Perhaps she could corner them. If she were to make her presence known they might avoid her but run into Hero, who had the proper tools for tracking and dealing with the more unconventional foes, possibly accompanied by a local team, considering how open he was. If she could encounter someone from a local team that would follow her, then their chances would be even greater in the off chance the enemy scattered instead.

Her decision was made. She flew forward, the shock wave turning heads on the ground. She would need to find a local hero. A Meister. They would understand the city in from a point of view she couldn’t yet, and would know more about the local villains than the scarce threat reports sent by their superiors.

Sitting at the edge of a rooftop, dejected and alone was a girl. The dark haired Meister in onyx police gear was hanging her head down, hunched over and staring at her radio as Alexandria approached her. She was already in the area, and would make for a good enough addition, it would lessen the chance of failure to have someone who knew the lay of the land. It was hard not to notice the resemblance to the girl she saw in the video, the one who could avoid damage with duplicates and teleporting.

A direct approach would be the best option. In a situation like this, with lives of civilians and heroes on the line, functioning now, repressing, took precedence over everything else. 

She would be able to mope later.

“Soldier,” Alexandria called. Perhaps ‘Meister’ would have been more appropriate, but the girl’s training would still be fresh on her mind, and she hadn’t graduated into a hero yet, no Meister had, according to reports. “There are people who still need help down there. Follow me. I’m closing in on The Fang, and we need all hands on deck.” 

A demand. Because if Alexandria allowed the girl to have a choice, she would choose to stay here and sulk.

“Hmph,” the girl snickered. “Shut up,” she followed with, as if that was the end of it, unknowing or perhaps uncaring of who was talking to her. 

“You have a code to follow, people need you. And I’m sure you need to keep your spot on the Leaderboard.”

“Ruby would have said the exact opposite. ‘It’s okay if you’re not feeling up to it Blake, Yang will take over. Who cares about a goddamn leaderboard, Blake?’ She was always so fucking nice!” She curled into herself just a little more, bringing the radio to her forehead, then back to her lap, the fight leaving her. “And I should have listened.” She whispered, in a low, matter of fact tone.

Was. Should have. Would have. The past tense wasn’t something that slipped past Alexandria, and she couldn’t help but notice the Meister’s thumb lightly caressing the radio before the girl in onyx gear almost shuddered with a breath, and sunk back into herself.

Not sulking then, mourning her leader. Alexandria should have realized it sooner.

Another approach would be necessary then, the girl, Blake, would only close herself further if pressured. Asking short questions, anything simple to follow and open for personal answers would help girl air what she was holding on to. If she stood back and listened to Blake, then the girl would come around all on her own.

“I have a friend like that, I’m sorry,” Alexandria replied, automatically. It was supposed to be a show of trust, to show something personal and invite the same, before she realized the words were true and not just something she would have blurted to a random soldier. Hers was also terribly nice, and would be shooting her with frowns were he present at the moment.

“You know, when we joined the Meisters, I always thought it wasn’t for me. Whenever we were together, I felt like I didn’t belong. Like they were just tolerating me when they shouldn’t. I kinda hated them for it, for not being mad at me even once after all the shit I’ve done. It felt like they were lying to my face.”

From what Blake was saying, perhaps she used to be one of East Germany’s capes. Whatever the history behind that was, it couldn’t have been pretty. She let the girl continue.

“But now I’m sitting here just thinking about how the hell am I supposed to go on without them.”

Alexandria watched the girl take several deep breaths, silently. Just as she was about to talk, Blake spoke up again

“I’ve called Command so many fucking times now and it’s always the same response. My entire team but me, killed.” A morbid chuckle escaped from her mouth, “I always thought I was gonna be the first one to go, courtesy of some madman with the power to spit acid snot or some stupid shit like that.”

That didn’t add up with what Alexandria knew, to say the least. Hero had met with members of Ruby Rose’s team. Blake and Ruby most likely weren’t the ones he met with. This too might have been a plan from The Fang. Orchestrating misinformation like this would have required prior knowledge, or access to Blake’s psychiatric profile, to say the least. A task that generally speaking, would be decidedly out of reach from most people.

 _They’re not just jamming signals._ Frustrating, to say the least.

“Your Command has bad intel” Alexandria explained, careful to keep her tone neutral, so she wouldn’t appear to be talking down to the girl. “I talked with Hero about five minutes ago, and he reported having met with someone from Team Ruby. I sincerely doubt they all died in the meantime. The sooner you come with me, and the sooner we take out The Fang, the sooner you’ll-”

“Shut up! Stop lying to me!” Blake screamed, a sudden burst of anger, then winded down. It crossed Alexandria’s mind just how young the girl must really be. “You just wanna use me, same as them.”

 _That’s not true._ She didn’t use people, she guided them. Tried to show them a different, better way.

“I don’t, Blake. Can I call you Blake?”

“Why are you doing that?”  
  
“What am I doing?”

“Trying to get in my head! Telling me they’re lying!”

“I’m not. Your Command isn’t lying. It’s The Fang trying to mess with them, by messing with you. With all of us. Likely they studied some of you beforehand, or they might have a double agent.” 

It was only an assumption, but Blake stopped for a brief moment. Considering and digesting Alexandria’s words. She would accept it, if only because it gave her hope.

“I know your team is still out there,” Alexandria continued. “And they need you right now. Just as much as you need them.”

Blake sat upright. Putting away her radio back into the chest harness, she faced Alexandria. 

“Fine,” She answered. “At least I’ll get to make The Fang pay for this shit.” 

“Good. Take my hand, I’ll fly us down.”

Alexandria extended her hand, and Blake took it. She picked the girl around her waist, careful not to use too much strength, as she did with everything after getting her powers. 

Careful not to break them.

“You said they might have a double agent right?” Blake inquired. She looked down for a brief moment, then pressed herself closer. “I couldn’t see much before we split, but I could swear Yang was fighting a Meister. I wasn’t sure and it was in the middle of a fight, but I think it was Cinder Fall.”

“What else do you know about this Cinder?”

“She used to be dead last on the Leaderboard,” Blake explained, then picked up her radio. A bulky piece, it was also outfitted with a large liquid-crystal display, the same kind found in pagers. It displayed a live ranking of Meisters:

Team Classification

Nº 1: Team Juniper | Total: 8000

1 - Pyrrha Nikos 4000

2 - Lie Ren 2000

3 - Nora Valkyrie 1500

4 - Jaune Arc 500

Nº 2: Team RWBY | Total: 7500

5 - Ruby R. - K.I.A 3000

6 - Weiss S. - K.I.A 2000

7 - Yang X. - K.I.A 1500

8 - Blake Belladonna 1000

Nº 3: Team Sun | Total: 5200

9 - Sun Wukong 1800

10 - Scarlet David 1600

11 - Sage Ayana 1300

12 - Neptune Vasilias 500

“The top three teams are always on screen,” Blake said. “We weren’t close to Cinder, but she lost her team pretty early on in the project. She wasn't ever really the same after that, and from the way she used to look at team Juniper, I suppose she didn’t like them very much.”

Did she sympathize with Cinder? It would be possible, even after a conflict like this, if they had spent enough time around one another. Perhaps even without realizing it, Blake was drawing explanations, looking past the deeds of someone who, if they were correct, was now a mass murderer.

“What’s the Classification for?” Alexandria inquired.

“Our grades. Number of arrests, efficiency, that kind of stuff. Failing gets you penalized, whatever failure means at the time they're judging our performance, and one member can end up dragging the whole team down.”

“Seems like things are a little different than when you used to be vigilantes, to say the least.”

“Yeah, back then, I remember how we used to meet with other teams, it’s how we came up with the whole fairy tale thing. It’s why we’re calling those monsters Grimm.”

Now that the girl pointed it out, Alexandria could see it, thinking back to the video she had seen not one hour ago. 

“If it really was Cinder,” Blake continued, “then I know where she might be. Years ago we used to hide across the U-Bahn network, even made some camping sites out of abandoned stations. Last thing I saw while we were fighting was Cinder getting dragged underground, and I think one of those stations near our Headquarters might still have supplies left.”

That was news. Admittedly, Alexandria hadn’t been around in Berlin for much of that time, but vigilantes making their own underground district was impressive on it’s own. All that so they could do what they felt was right at the time. 

Finding Cinder would lead to the rest of the Fang once she interrogated the ex-Meister. Once she had The Fang it would be a matter of time until she deciphered how to stop this Grimm invasion for good.

She flew them towards the nearest U-Bahn, landing once they were inside the eerily silent station. Lights flickered, and some of the concrete was smashed to pieces, cracks spread across the surface and into walls.

Blake let go of her, and landed with nearly soundless steps. She glanced along the tracks, then turned back to Alexandria.

“I think we’re a bit far away, but it won’t take long to get there,” Blake declared, pointing towards the tunnel. “I’ll have to keep my eyes out, Cinder would probably booby trap the place.”

Blake was about to jump down to the tracks below, but the entire station shuddered with a macabre echo. Moments later a single subway cart sped along the railway, without power or even a conductor.

By instinct, Alexandria could exert the effort to see just in time, a moment untangling in full detail, the crimson haired Meister carrying a round metal shield, short sword and wearing brass-gold greek armor. Pyrrha Nikos.

Gone just as quickly as it emerged, the cart disappeared into the tunnel, speeding along the tracks towards where Blake had pointed moments earlier. A shadowy serpent that could have rivaled a subway in size followed a split second later.

“Fuck,” Blake uttered under her breath. “That’s probably Pyrrha. We have to get there before she does.”

“Why? If she’s a Meister like you, isn’t that a good thing? We’ll have one more to help us capture Cinder.”

“Capture?” Blake asked, indignant. “ Command is foaming at the mouth, ordering everyone to kill on sight. If we get there after her team, there might not be anything to capture”

Orders to kill. She hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but after so many deaths it was inevitable. Racing the Meister to the finish line would be necessary then.

“Her team? Pyrrha was the only one in there.” Alexandria said.

“That’s not how they work. If she was alone in that cart, then they came to the same conclusion we did. They’re probably preparing something to strike from another vantage point, hit someone else at the same time, coordinating.”

Alexandria picked the girl once more, and flew inside the tunnel, almost picking up too much speed before remembering she was holding onto what as far as she knew was a normal parahuman, one without her invulnerability. After a good kilometer, she came across a fork in the tunnel.

The left one had signs of wear and tear across the walls. Still, Alexandria looked at Blake for confirmation that this was the path to the old vigilante hideout. The girl nodded in return.

Ahead they could see the cart picking up speed, the giant snake nipping at its heels

Alexandria flew forward, and extended a hand to seize the snake, careful not to let go of Blake, or hold on too tight. In an enclosed space like this she could whip the serpent’s body, use the tunnel walls to briefly shock the creature before, which would allow for her to take it out without too much trouble. 

Alexandria pursued, to carry out her plan, and in the midst of doing so, several pieces of the rail lanced upwards with a ghastly resonance, forcing her to pull back and evade in a spiral along the air. 

The pieces pinned the Grimm to the ceiling in a perfect line from it’s jaw to the tip of its tail. Cracks spiderwebbed across the roof, concrete giving way to an I-Beam that emerged above the back of it’s head. A makeshift blunt guillotine that forcibly tore it’s way through the head instead of cutting it clean. Dust showered from the ceiling as it collapsed behind them, burying the Grimm.

 _Okay._ Now she understood why Blake was concerned.

The cart picked up even more speed, slowly becoming a blurry gray dot in the poorly lit distance. Limited as she was while holding Blake, Alexandria couldn't follow. By the time she could see the vehicle in the distance once more, it was empty.

Covering Blake with her body and cape, Alexandria turned her back to the cart door so debris wouldn’t hit the girl, flying back first into the steel wagon. The door burst from its rails, bending inwards and hitting the opposite side of the cart, then falling to the floor with a loud clatter.

“You fucking maniac!” Blake shouted, as Alexandria slowed down her flight before coming to a halt, so that Blake wouldn’t suffer from a whiplash, Blake jumped down from her grip a moment later. Just outside the cart door was Pyrrha. The tall redhead stared into the dark station, unmoving, as if she were a statue.

The abandoned underground hideout was lit by flickering emergency lights, likely a temporary solution in the middle of the crisis. It would have made things somewhat hard to see, if it weren’t for the visor Hero gifted Alexandria. Dirty walls of what was once a noisy and busy station were littered with graffiti, and laying down near what was once a snack machine, lied a young woman in a red and gold dress, strewn across the floor alongside an opened first aid kit.

“I don’t suppose you’re here to talk, oh invincible girl,” Cinder questioned, in a tone that veiled whatever fear she might have, faced with a Protectorate member and two Meisters. She stood up, slowly.

“I’m here to take you in. Surrender, now,” Alexandria asserted.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Cinder replied.

“I guess you can say we’re way past talking it out now,” Pyrrha cut in.

Pyrrha stepped away from the edge of the station, and Blake followed, trying to stop the Meister by touching her shoulder.

She yanked her shoulder away either by force of habit or thanks to emotion overriding whatever sense of companionship their mutual status as Meister carried.

“Don’t even try it, Blake,” Pyrrha snarled the words. She looked at Cinder, then pointed her sword, “Command gave us clear orders. And I’m not going to fail, not when she’s the reason there are Grimm killing people by the hundreds. They killed your team!”

“That’ll be counter productive,” Alexandria argued, flying closer to the duo. Without warning, her visor locked in place and she stopped moving immediately, something inside creaked and threatened to snap, but the visor remained attached. A close call that might have revealed her identity.

“And you,” Pyrrha continued. “Stay out of this. This is between Meisters only, and she needs to pay.”

“Pyrrha,” Blake appealed. “Think about this, we need her alive if we’re going to get the rest of The Fang.”

“What we need is to follow our orders,” Pyrrha affirmed.

“By killing a Meister?” Blake asked.

“She’s not a Meister, she’s a traitor!” Pyrrha shouted the words, taking a step towards blake. “Who knows how long she’s been a mole?”

“Hah, did Command tell you all this nonsense, miss number one?” Cinder sniped the words at Pyrrha, amused. “Or was it Ozpin himself this time? He’s fooling all of you.”

“Cindy, stop it! We know you’ve been with The Fang,” Blake refuted.

“Yeah?” The traitor in red countered, a grin spreading across her face. Alexandria herself wouldn’t have guessed that girl was dead last on the Leaderboard just by looking at her. She oozed confidence, elegance, and power, all traits perfect for a Protectorate heroine.

It was like looking at a red-gold mirror.

“Well,” Cinder continued, with near theatrical flair, bringing her index finger to her mouth, then pointing it at the pair, mockingly, “Ozpin supporting Robyn Becker behind the scenes must be something you know then? Or that Becker has powers, but wasn’t forced to join like we were? They’re using us. I don’t know what for, but I’m not going to be a part of it!”

Hit and miss, but she wasn’t far off. Ozpin wasn’t the one backing Robyn. The Doctor had suggested it years ago, before the wall fell. Matters that, at the time, were arranged so that she wouldn’t be a victim of political assassination. It would free a load from the heroes, and give West Germany more chances. Still, Alexandria feigned surprise.

“This is your last chance Cinder, don’t make it worse than it needs to be,” Alexandria said, from the subway cart.

An incandescent spear cut through the air alongside a furious shout from the traitor. Pyrrha cut the spear out of the air and dashed towards Cinder

Blake followed, pulling a police baton. Whatever was keeping control of Alexandria’s visor let go, only to then send her crashing downwards, followed by an eruption of piping, wires and steel, forcing the heroine upwards through the ceiling, burying her inside. Pyrrha’s power.

Cinder touched her palm to the now half-melted old snack machine, and it melted underneath her fingertips, incandescent liquid quickly reforging into a bow and arrow, complete with intricate art nouveau florals. She let an arrow loose, and it hit Blake’s shoulder, only for the Meister in black to appear at Cinder’s side, her duplicate going limp and fading out of existence. She attempted a swing aimed at Cinder’s jaw, but the traitor ducked under the attack.

Pyrrha closed in with a kick that landed square on Cinder’s temple, and sent her tumbling down. Cinder, on her end, rolled herself back to a standing position, split her bow into a pair of swords and attempted to cut at both Meister’s ankles. Pyrrha jumped over the slash, and Blake stepped back.

Blake attempted to hold Pyrrha back once more, only to be pushed away for her efforts. Cinder took her chance attempting to duel Pyrrha, losing the upper hand as Pyrrha cut at Cinder, one move flowing seamlessly into the next. First a scratch at the forehead and cheek, to make the traitor raise her guard, then another at the abdomen. A deeper cut that was followed by a thin ribbon of blood.

Scarlet spurred into the floor. With one hand Cinder partially melted down a sword, then pressed her palm into her abdomen, hissing as the stopgap measure to stop the bleeding did it’s work. With the other, she slashed at Pyrrha, leaving a cut near the left shoulder.

Pyrrha gave no quarter and aimed her blade at Cinder’s throat, only for the deadly dance to be deflected by Blake’s baton.

In what might have been a split second decision, Pyrrha maneuvered around it with a quick step, and launched her shield towards Blake, hitting the girl square on the forehead. The shield bounced and hit Cinder’s knee, then ricocheted back to Pyrrha’s left arm. 

“Blake!” Pyrrha’s worried shout echoed across the station. She turned and —briefly forgetting the Meister’s power— tried to catch the duplicate as it went limp. Blake reappeared besides Pyrrha, just in time to deflect a stab from Cinder, using her baton.

Alexandria dug through the ceiling, only to feel her Visor locked in place once again, threatening to snap out of her costume at the slightest move.

This wouldn’t do. They would kill each other.

She shouldn’t move. She _could_ certainly move, break her visor, and immobilize the people in the room, but that would make things difficult in the long run. It would require travelling far enough away that Doormaker could safely open a portal, and in the minutes that took, lives would be lost. It would be a last resort. 

She could simply speak, and had a fairly good read on Cinder by now. Could do it while playing the role of a dumb brute too.

“Cinder! Why did you kill Blake’s team?” Alexandria asked. An accusatory statement, just in time for it to be punctuated by Pyrrha landing a kick on Cinder’s thigh. Something about the statement stripped the attitude away, and Alexandria picked it up without effort. The confidence was a facade, and like any mask, it could be broken. She didn’t hate the Meisters, because if she did, she wouldn’t have attempted to talk. Her distaste for the Headmaster, feeling used, she hated the conditioning stripping away what had made her, she hated the Project, Ozpin and the Leaderboard. 

Because they were the death of the vigilantes in Germany.

“I didn’t!” The traitor answered, looking up. It was true, she showed no signs of lying even while under pressure. Or perhaps she was simply a good liar. 

“Liar!” Pyrrha shouted what Alexandria was going to say, following with a shield bash to Cinder’s ribs, prompting a howl of pain that almost lit up a pang of sympathy.

“If you didn’t, then why are they listed as K.I.A, Cinder?” Alexandia pressured. “You were the last one spotted fighting them, what are you hiding?” She lied. Cinder wasn’t the last one spotted fighting them, at least she wasn’t alone Torchwick, Neo, and at least one other were present at the time. And there was no chance that Blake's team was killed in action. Hero made contact, he wouldn’t die just like that, and if he did, he wouldn't take a foreign team with him. But hearing it, being pressured and accused was throwing Cinder off, which was what they needed. If she could wind her down, then Blake would stop Pyrrha.

Pyrrha stood back as Alexandria said the words, then slashed away at the ex-meister before she could answer. Overwhelmed and stressed, the ex-Meister could only step back and attempt defending herself, earning a few superficial cuts along the way. 

“Did you do it because of what happened to your team, Cinder? Jealous of Blake’s spot on the board?” She pressured further, and Blake looked at her, baffled.

She could understand why, considering the talk they had minutes ago. The reason Blake opposed the idea of killing was sympathy. It was a button she wouldn’t have pressed in any other situation, but Cinder felt like the project was responsible for the death of her team, and implanting the idea that she was responsible for the death of someone else’s would give her pause. Make her hesitate and double guess her decisions.

If Hero were here, he wouldn’t just disapprove, he would be telling her to stop. Making her stop. This whole debacle wouldn’t even be happening, but she couldn’t stop now when it put the lives of these misguided, stubborn and competitive Meisters on the line.

“I didn’t-” the traitor shouted back, only to be interrupted by Pyrrha delivering a knee to her sternum. Cinder fell to her hands and knees, clutching her stomach, panting.

The power that clutched Alexandria’s visor let go, and she flew down, landing, but maintaining a distance. They would need space, and her intrusion would set off hostile reactions again. She walked to the first aid kit. It was nearly spent, but it still had disinfectant, gauze and a suture kit. Cinder would survive. She picked up the kit, and walked towards her.

“We didn’t -” Cinder’s words were interrupted by a violent cough, then a howl of pain, “We didn’t kill them, we were just supposed to distract. They were alive.”

Cinder fell to the ground, laying on her side, and Pyrrha moved towards her, but Blake stood in her way before she could get one step closer, crossed her arms and refused to budge. The golden Meister, a good head taller and with skill that clearly exceeded Blake’s, could most likely simply pick her up and launch the girl elsewhere, yet she stopped.

“Blake, move,” Pyrrha demanded.

“No. I’m not moving, and you’re not killing her,” Blake asserted. “At least not now. We need to interrogate her, there’s a chance that Command made several mistakes, one after the other.”

“Fine then,” Pyrrha said. “I’ll wait, and if this turns out to be a waste of time, if Jaune, Nora or Ren get hurt while I’m here, that’ll be on you.”

Blake was about to open her mouth as her radio flared to life, static giving way to a familiar voice.

“Contact. This is Hero, can anyone hear me? Goddamn it this thing should work, I’m sure I did everything right…”

Blake stared at the radio, dumbfounded. Looking at Alexandria, then Pyrrha -equally in disbelief- and back to the radio. 

“Hello? Anyone listening?”

She looked at Alexandria once more, eyes going wide, not knowing what to do.

“Pick it up,” Alexandria said, repressing the smile from her face.

Slowly, she brought the radio near her head, and pressed the button at it’s side.

“This is Blake Belladonna, Twain, I hear you”

“Good, look, right now, something is playing hell with my sensors. It’s using ultrasound, messing up signals, scrambling everything, not just mine. Had to get some blockers of my own up. Can you get in direct contact with Alexandria or Legend?”

Alexandria moved towards Blake, leaning closer to the radio.

“I’d say she can. This is Alexandria.”

“Whoa Alex! You'll have to tell me that story later! I’ve got the impression a lot happened. Weiss and Yang are leading me to one of their old hideouts, we’ll have Robyn in no time. Whatever is messing with communications isn’t just messing with mine, or theirs, it’s messing with everyone’s, and it’s coming from Meister HQ.”


	4. Rose's Anthem

**May 17, 1988**

She stared at the vending machine that swallowed her money. It had brand new american food and she couldn’t wait to taste the new cookies, but now there they were, taunting her. Stuck at the bottom of the machine, just out of reach and stuck at the very end of the spring mechanism, so she shook the machine.

Nothing. 

Sweet Emotion’s baked goods were still waiting for her, begging to be rescued from this cold, burglarizing prison. She crammed her hand inside the delivery port, only for it to nearly get stuck. The people around the station were looking at her.

“Come on sis, let me give it a try,” Yang offered. She kicked the machine with a strike that would have been hard enough to atomize the thieving apparatus, but with her power not only she somehow managed to keep the machine intact but launched the cookie box into the glass, then down to the pickup port. The people around the U-Bahn station either feigned ignorance or were too busy to notice anyways. 

Ruby took the box and opened it, she hadn’t eaten in a long time now and her stomach rumbled in response to the scent of chocolate chip cookies. The irresistible, rich, buttery scent of melted semi-sweet chocolate with a hint of vanilla instead of walnut because Yang was allergic to that.

“Come on, let me have some!” Yang said, reaching into the box, before Ruby pulled it away.

“No way! You said I could have it first if we used my allowance, so you get to wait”

“What? If it wasn’t for me neither of us would have it!”

“Well, a promise is a promise Yang.”

They set down next to the machine, so Ruby could eat without having to stand near the crowd. She hated crowds.

The train stopped at the station, but they didn’t get in. They walked home only after everything went dark. Soldiers would be patrolling soon; they didn’t have anything against Ruby, Yang or their friends from the ghost stations, but last time they met a Sergeant said their superiors would make a fuss if they were seen cooperating with what the Americans were calling ‘capes'.

She didn't really understand the term. No one in the stations wore capes. Here, when they got powers Ozpin suggested they pick fairy tales instead. Maybe they should call themselves ‘tales’ or something. 

The last person got into the train, taking the sound of chattering and people walking to and fro disappeared with them. Fluorescent lights flickered on and off, and the workers closed all entrances. Time to go.

Yang jumped to the rails below, and helped Ruby down. The dark and grimy down the tunnel felt familiar now. 

Her sister had taken her through here many times, so she could get by without problem, but it was nicer with Yang around. Ruby had eaten her way through half the box now, so she handed it to her sister, who dug into the box, eager to eat her first treat of the day.

“Oh my god,” Yang sang the words. “Sweet Emotion is so good, Is this real chocolate? It’s so much better than Natural Selections!”

“And look! They don’t even come with killer seeds!”

“They’re not killer seeds Ruby,” Yang chuckled. “They’re just deadly to me. Unless someone gets a bunch of them stuck on their throat, I guess they’d be deadly then too.”

“You think Sweet Emotion has anything to do with that American band?” Ruby asked, and the blonde glared at her, swallowed a mouthful of cookies, and a smirk spread across her face.

“Ruby, you’ve been spending way too long in Uncle Qrow’s shop. What are you even doing there? The place is for grown ups and you’re like, twelve.”

“Ugh, you say that like you didn’t spend all your time in his training ring.”

Yang laughed softly, but didn’t argue.

They arrived at the edge of a ghost station, the one where some teams were camping with some of the new refugees, a temporary kind of thing. Ruby saw a blonde teen in jeans and a t-shirt running towards them.

“Hey, Yang, Ruby, wait up,” he exclaimed, leaving his post briefly and jumping down to the tacks. “How are things down there in Kreuzberg?”

Jaune, from Team Juniper. He was nice, so Ruby smiled at him.

“Everything seems okay since the last raid,” Yang answered. “We kept our end of the deal so Ozpin’s policemen should be dropping some boxes soon.”

“Same as always?” Jaune asked.

“Rations and extra equipment. Should last us a while.” Yang replied. “But I don’t think the guys on the other side of the death strip are ready to try anything. Why? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, It’s just that Blake was a little… different earlier today, to say the least. Pyrrha and Cindy are still with her, but I think they need to talk to you.”

Ruby worried for a moment. Teams switched members around all the time, It’s what kept them together, so why did Jaune hesitate like that?

“Well, thanks for the heads up.” Yang approved, giving him a thumbs up. “Is everyone here getting ready to move from the station?”

“We are, thanks. Also if you see Ren and Nora could you please send them my way? They are so behind on their team attack training I don’t even wanna _think_ about all the work we have ahead of us.”

Jaune helped a lot even though he didn’t have powers. She guessed that made him one of them now. Cool, a lot of people were doing that lately thanks to Ozpin.

Yang said goodbye, and they walked down the tunnel, leaving the ghost station. Kakaina and Dexter were the ones watching the other side at this time. Surprised to see the two around so soon, she waved at them, and they nodded back.

They were kinda serious all the time, but that was okay.

Down the tunnel, one would be forgiven for thinking it was the end of the line. The brick wall was fake, and it hid their brand new HQ, courtesy of Ozpin. 

Yang pulled a fake brick, and typed a code into the keypad that was inside. A normal sized door opened into the corridor that led to the modified station. The main hall had electricity now, a tube tv, and someone was kind enough to bring a new couch _and_ a betamax player! 

Ruby would never believe it used to be a train station, and it beat sleeping in stations and alleyways by a long shot, even if it could use a few X-Ray and Vav posters here and there.

Yang walked to the room on their right, the medical bay. Inside, it was split between the patient beds and visitors by a window. On their side, Cindy and Pyrrha sat on a plastic chair and an office chair, on that order. Cindy’s Red dress was a little tattered, and a cut on her arm was closed with a metallic looking stitch. Pyrrha was immaculate, if looking a little tired.

On the patient side, Blake was asleep on a hospital bed.

_So Blake is all right!_

“We’ve been waiting for you,” Cindy said, breaking the ice. “All we’ve been doing so far is waiting and reading.”

“Reading what?” Ruby asked.

“Food warnings,” Cindy answered as she pointed at the garbage bin, now filled with an assortment of empty food boxes. She took the Natural Selections box of cookies and her eyes narrowed, noticing something on the back of the box.

“We make no guarantees of allergen prevention,” Cindy read, her eyebrows furrowing. “If you ignore this warning, we thank you for voluntarily removing yourself from the gene pool.” 

“How is she, Cindy?” Yang asked, her tone serious.

“Physically? Fine.” The girl answered. “At least thanks to her power. We were just getting done with our sweep yesterday, when some guy on the other side tried to hit me with something, I couldn't tell what. She pushed me out of the way.”

“Then what happened?”

“She was fine until we got to the station,” Pyrrha cut in. “We were about to wait for the last train, and Cindy insisted we check up on Blake. Then, Blake nearly pulled a knife on a lady and started shouting something in russian.”

“What, just like that?” Yang coughed in surprise. “That doesn’t sound like Blake. Anymore.”

“We’re thinking they have someone new working on the death strip,” Pyrrha continued. “There was this one man we haven’t fought before. Disappeared pretty quickly. We spent the last day in the warehouse district, and she seems a little better now, but we can’t be sure.”

“And what did Ozpin say?” Yang queried.  
  
“Ozpin said we should have Nightingale take a look at her, because he thinks her power could be useful. Something like lie detection.”

“That so? You think she’ll be joining us?”

“Maybe,” Pyrrha said, moving towards the window. “Who knows.”

**Now**

_Who knows_ , the words echoed in her mind.

“Pipsqueak,” someone said above her. Qrow? No, he wasn’t in Berlin, and a woman said the words. Robyn? Ruby answered by snapping her eyes open, irked by the nickname. Her neck screamed in pain at her, followed by her back, but her head laid on something soft. She pushed her mind, a nudge, and remembered it. 

Ah. The improvised pillow made with Robyn’s coat. 

Robyn. Or Nightingale, whatever she called herself.

 _Where._ She prodded her memory further. Not in the old hideout, she hadn’t bought cookies today. No, this was uncle Qrow’s old shop, in the warehouse district. Wooden floorboards underneath, and the bulletproof reinforced counter she accidentally slept under, just in front of the drink shelves. Her rifle was still nearby, within arm’s reach, good.

But why had she dreamed about that?

“How long?” She asked, already trying to get up. Her muscles screamed in unison, an annoying choir she promptly silenced. 

“Five minutes,” Robyn sighed, then kneeled in front of Ruby. Whatever expression she made, Ruby couldn’t see it with her vision still blurry.

“That’s too long. I was just....” 

Just, what again? What was she trying to recover from? The words didn’t come, and after a few moments, the candidate touched her forehead, a green shimmer emanating from her hand. What for?

“Don’t even try, Pipsqueak. Hmm, trying to rest so you can finish the mission? Does Beacon mean anything?” Robyn inquired

Definitely her power, that polygraph, and the kickstart needed to refresh her memory.

She could relive the lights being taken out during the debate, flooding the pace in darkness when The Fang detonated their first bomb. 

They didn’t know about her infrared vision when she used her power, and it worked to her advantage getting Robyn out of there.

Ruby remembered the visage, the sight of a girl around her age looking past her -- not at her -- with a blank expression, life taken away by the first explosion. She pushed away the memories of the bodies among the rubble, and thanked her power for leaving her deaf when using it, so she wouldn’t remember more people that they could help calling for them, or Sun desperately trying to help the ensuing chaos. She crushed those memories, like always.

She tried to rescue Leo too, but he ran away from her, and with The Fang.

Willingly. Not Torchwick’s power, none of them got to him first. Not Neo, not Mercury or Emerald.

She would have told Meister command, if they hadn’t chosen to ignore it with radio silence after shouting about calling the monsters 'Grimm'. Gut feeling told her not to go back to the bunker base, to Beacon.

An instinct, like the one she’d feel on the back of her neck, when she thought someone was watching her. 

She remembered Cindy among The Fang, and anger dug its way back in alongside the feeling of trudging past bloody rubble, past still warm bodies. Taking her body to it’s limit. Ruby forgot, for a brief second, that it was Cinder now, not Cindy. 

Ever since the project started she was Cinder.

Scared, alone and with Grimm everywhere, her last option was calling the Protectorate. She hoped they would arrive in time, save them.

“Not what I wanted to say, but it works, ” Ruby answered.

“Red, as much as I’d love to take a stab at whatever happened there,” Robyn mused, pointing at Ruby’s forehead and drawing circles in the air, “your radio is doing something.” 

Robyn extended the radio towards her, pointing one finger towards the blue LCD screen. She couldn’t make heads or tails of the jumbled mess, numbers and letters had no rhyme or reason, constantly changing to a heartbeat rhythm. 

An omen. 

A specially odd one, Ruby could swear she had removed the batteries before they arrived, because the device had devolved to pure static and it nearly drove her mad. 

The blue screen went dark, then lit up gold. 

“Weird, I didn’t even know it could have other colors.”

“Well, is it supposed to do that?”

“No,” Ruby answered, scrambling for the batteries she left her ammo pouch. 

“Well then, look alive, we’ve got company.”

“Friend or foe?”

It took a moment until she could hear it, the rhythmic sound of helicopter blades slicing through the air. Spotlights were shining through the boarded windows, searching.

Several of them, This _had_ to be Torchwick’s doing. Beacon wouldn’t send helicopters just shooting at everything.

“With today’s luck? Probably foe,” Robyn offered, readying her wrist crossbow.

Ruby opened her mouth, to question the integrity of the years old crossbow, but the crack of non stop gunfire halted whatever thought she nearly let tumble outwards dead in its tracks. Instinct took over, and she pushed the candidate to the floor, behind the bulletproof counter.

Not aimed at the shop. Yet. She wasn’t going to let them tear this place apart too.

_Where is the button again? This is just the time to use it._

There, under the sink. She pressed the red octagon, and the wooden board beneath drink shelves opened with a hiss of air escaping the hidden pneumatic systems, a short flare of light surging from the cracks.

She pushed herself from the counter, sliding atop the wooden floorboards feet first into the hidden room.

Uncle Qrow’s weapon room.

Now they were talking. Inside the brick room she faced the piece of vehicle plating that never left it’s place on the wall. A memento according to uncle Qrow, meticulously decorated with a pin up painting of a familiar, red-headed lady in high heel knee boots, short shorts, and a cropped top. Despite the gear, she always felt fierce, one leg raised, carrying a bazooka atop one shoulder, and a crow perched on the other.

She glanced to her left, at the assortment of rifles, pistols and tasers, even a flamethrower her uncle lovingly kept inside the framed, hefty gun display cabinet.

_He even lined the inside of the cabinet with velvet._

But she wasn’t supposed to look for that. To her right were the built-in shelves, lit by recessed light were neat rows of ammunition, flashbangs and ‘special’ ammo; all orderly arranged. 

On the lowest shelf she found the crossbow. Still stored in the briefcase, Ruby knew it was pristine --at best it only even went through a test run-- it could shoot bolas or electrified bolts, depending on the magazine used. Wasn’t much, but definitely better than what Robyn carried at the moment. She’d just have to conserve ammo.

“Robyn!” She shouted at the top of her lungs. Without missing a beat, Ruby pulled the box, and kicked it outside, all too aware of the increasing torrent of gunfire.

Now for her own. 

Ruby took the grenade belt, flashbangs and the net grenades to carry on her cloak, extra ammo as well as the tasers, one pistol and the harpoon rifle. 

_Yes! The harpoon gun._ Experimental, and almost as tall as she was, with equally long javelins for ammo. Only six left, more than enough, so she strapped it to her back.

She realized with a sigh that if she took the gun, she wouldn’t be able to take the flamethrower. And at the moment, Tochwick _really_ deserved the flamethrower. But that would be lethal, regardless of what Meister HQ demanded

 _Oh._ She almost forgot. The detonator, just in case someone found the place, of course. The pin up lady caught her attention once more, she could almost recognize her.

Ruby used her power, splitting into petals and quickly drifting back to the other side. She reformed besides Robyn, just in time for the candidate to finish loading the arbalest, a long silvery weapon marked only with it’s serial numbers on the side. The bow folded into itself, so that it could be easily carried.

She reached for the candidate, almost tackling her in the heat of the moment, then used her power again, this time taking Robyn into the transformation. Quickly gliding outside through the back door, they reformed, almost falling to the hard concrete below as the inertia carried. 

The sound of three helicopters flying so low nearby made it hard for Ruby to hear even her own thoughts. She looked back to Robyn and resigned herself to pointing towards where they'd be running to.

Had to keep moving, especially when the enemy on the lookout for Robyn. It would be safer to move between buildings before they could get a vantage point to take on the first aircraft. A helicopter's spotlight beaming dangerously close forced her to stop and lean against the brick wall before they turned the corner, followed by Robyn doing the same. Once it was pointing somewhere else, Ruby nodded towards the next alleyway, behind a warehouse.

 _Stay here._ She mouthed, pointing downwards and hoping the future mayor would understand in time.

Ruby raced forward, using her power as soon as Robyn reached her. The world went silent for her as she darted upwards, above the empty buildings and face to face with the trio of helicopters. Only one of them circled close enough to be a problem, her infrared vision made their heat stand out against the cold night.

An unusual heat emanated from underneath the parking lot, but it wasn’t important at the moment. The choppers were flying above an empty parking lot, likely looking for something like Yang’s motorcycle. Ruby knew she’d have to make it into an arena.

Ruby turned off her power, reforming in the air. Her hand quickly snapped to her the cloak and took a flashbang she launched towards the nearest chopper, then aimed the harpoon rifle at it’s tail.

The javelin split into two in midair, both halves connected by a cable, and one end burrowed itself in the tail, then blossomed into five spikes. The other dug its way into the wall of a nearby warehouse. It did so with enough force that the engine struggled to keep the aircraft aloft. 

_Have to keep moving._ Ruby reactivated her power, transforming into a storm of petals, and rushing back to where she came from.

Just in time for the flashbang to detonate. 

It didn’t even register when she was using her power, but to their credit, the pilot must have been a really skilled one to keep a failing helicopter stable while blinded and deafened.

The gunfire stopped, and she knew why. The Javelin was pulling now, and it would either take a piece of the wall with it, or tear the aircraft from the sky. A fifty-fifty chance, really.

Not that either would be good news for Torchwick’s goons. 

The torrent of gunfire became sporadic, so she moved to the next target. They were looking for them on the ground, so chances were they didn’t have eyes in the sky. The speed she moved at and the dark of night made it even less likely, so she flew above them, high enough that they became orange-red dots in the dark blue, then deactivated her power once more.

Letting herself fall, she unstrapped the grenades from her cloak, and pulling the pins, aimed them near the second helicopter. Near and above it, not at it, so that it would maneuver closer to the first in an emergency. 

She dropped the grenades and activated her power again, basic lessons from uncle Qrow perfected. _Don’t stay in one place for too long. Attack from an unexpected angle. Hit and run. Be like yourself, not like me._ It saved her life more times than Yang.

The grenades detonated and as she expected, the machine swerved heavily, too close to the first, barely a few meters apart, and too close to the ground now.

One quick glance confirmed Robyn was still hiding in the spot. 

She flew down to the same level as the second helicopter and fired the next Javelin at the spotlight, to take away their sight. It hit dead center, spikes anchoring on impact as the lights flickered off. The second half punched through and split into the first aircraft, then slowly pulled them close.

The third helicopter aimed it’s spotlight at the current mess, trying to make sense of the situation.

Perfect.

Whatever goons were inside the first and second craft decided to take their chances abandoning ship by jumping to the ground below and leaving the pilots behind.

Ruby turned her attention to the third aircraft, flying to smack it dead on. She turned her power off, fired her pistol at the windshield, then let the momentum of her flight carry her through the broken glass and into the pilot’s chest.

“Oh! Hello Red,” came a voice from the inside. Torchwick, the red haired man in a white suit who carried only a walking cane. He was accompanied by a gunner that sat at the mounted chaingun. Ruby didn’t stop, jumping off the pilot and firing the taser at him while letting loose her last flashbang.

She split into petals to avoid the deafening and blinding explosion, then reformed. Just in time to avoid one of Roman’s blasts. A transparent wave of fire, that would have turned her efforts against herself, had it hit.

The gunner was about to pick up a rifle of his own, to shoot blindly, but with the spasming pilot the helicopter strayed downwards and directly towards the other two, knocking the man off balance. 

“Watch it with those things you idiot!” Torchwick barked at the goon, taking him by the collar and jumping off the helicopter, rolling as soon as he hit the ground.

Ruby poked the pilot’s jacket with the end of a javelin, then pushed him outside and fired the harpoon rifle, pinning him to the wall of a building by his clothes, just a few meters above the ground.

She activated her power and flew to the parking lot below, to face Roman.

“All that money and you can’t even slow down a teen. For thirty seconds. You were truly worth all of it,” He said, words dripping with sarcasm while looking at the downed mercenaries, just in time for the sentence to be punctuated by the pilots left behind jumping out, and the third helicopter crashing into the first two. The three section explosion followed by the heatwave forced him to take a step back.

“Leaving so soon, Torchwick? But the party is on _fire_ today,” Ruby taunted, aiming the harpoon gun at him.

Before Torchwick could react, a steel cord wrapped around his torso. Ah, the bolas, ammo from Robyn’s arbalest. She had made her way to them, using the explosions to sneak in, Ruby assumed.

Robyn walked towards them, switching the magazine for the electrified bolts while aiming at Torchwick. Good, now they could interrogate him. What was Leo hiding?

“Not at all, Red, I’m just waiting for my dance partner,” Torchwick snapped back. Ruby knew what that meant, glancing over to Robyn, she saw the point of light forming behind her. With a burst of her power, she tackled the future mayor, in time to evade Neopolitan.

They stood up, back to back, and with a blink, the petite villain disappeared, then reappeared a moment later at Torchwick’s side with a silver haired young man, and once more, but this time with no one else. 

What were her chances, here and now? Maybe with Robyn, as long as they avoided Neo...

“Attention murderers! Stand down, you’re surrounded!” a voice shouted from atop a building, behind the wall of fire.

 _Oh no._ It was them.

“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” Jaune, The Meister in white body armor continued, his voice magnified by a megaphone. He carried his sword with him, and the experimental shield collapsed into a sheath, as well as equipment given to his team by the Headmaster.

Emerging from heat and flames, Ruby could see the silhouette of a fellow Meister, the one tearing a chaingun from it’s aircraft. Nora, the Meister in pink. Electricity crackled from her, and Ruby could feel the metallic scent in the air.

Even from the distance, Ruby could see she was smiling. That was a bad sign, to anyone who could see the look in Nora’s eyes. 

Nora revved the likely overheated, and badly damaged chaingun as she walked out of the flames, unknowing or uncaring of the threat that the piece of weaponry posed to everyone but her.

In the corner of Ruby’s vision, a mercenary tried to get up, and a green figure knocked him out. It was gone by the time she looked at it, and didn't even register in infrared.

“Hard way it is then,” Jaune announced, planting his sword on the roof below him.

The green blur went after Neo next, and now Ruby knew who it was. Ren, the Meister in green, always impossible to see with powers. Neo tried to teleport away, only to be stopped by a kick.

Mercury stopped his attempt at untangling Torchwick and dashed to help. He kicked, but the momentum was used against him as Ren took him by the leg, then launched the villain to a nearby fallen mercenary.

In the middle of three villains and with all eyes on him, Ren disappeared from sight.

Nora fired at them, roaring as electricity snapped, emanated from her eyes, arched from her arms and body into the massive firearm. Mercury advanced, miraculously dodged the gunfire, and weaved closer in short quick bursts. In response, Nora stopped the hail of bullets, grabbed the chaingun by the barrel and swug at Mercury with sudden speed.

A rather brutal assault, hammering away with more emotion than the technique Ruby might expect from her. Mercury barely dodged the clobbering as Nora dictated the heavy and cruel rhythm of the fight, one he couldn’t disrupt. One swing nearly hit mercury, and the electricity that followed struck the young man’s chest with a booming thunder.

A nearby mercenary fired his rifle at Nora, and the bullets bounced off her personal forcefield. It wasn’t visible yet, which was a good thing for them, and all it earned the mercenary was a swift kick to the jaw.

She revved the weapon once more and fired at Mercury, forcing the downed villain to jump back to his feet before he could fully recover, then swung the chaingun at him, continuing the onslaught. 

“Nora! Stop it!” Ruby shouted, only for her words to be drowned out by the machine gun fire and thunder booming from the Meister in pink.

Ren reappeared having struck thin air, now fighting a dark-skinned woman, dressed in a jade costume. Emerald. Ren was winning, for now, but she kept disappearing from sight, becoming invisible if he gave her even a second to rest.

Ren… wouldn't listen either, that much she knew.

“I gotta say, everytime I think you kids can’t get any weirder you prove me wrong,” Torchwick said, contorting himself out of the steel wires that trapped him. He swung his cane at Ren, and followed it with a shot of his power. Ren ducked and dodged just in time for both to smack Emerald, the first hitting her jaw, the second making her fall on top of Ren. 

Ren locked his legs around Emerald’s waist, then backflipped with a handspring, sending the villain into Torchwick.

“Ren! How dare you?” Nora shouted, teasing the Meister in green. If The Meister in green was about to say something in response, Torchwick interrupted him, continuing his attacks.

Neo appeared besides Robyn once more, attempting to tag and teleport the candidate away. With her power Ruby burst both into petals, pulling herself and Robyn away. She flew to the building Jaune was standing at.

Jaune would stop this lunacy, he would listen.

“Jaune! What do you think you’re doing?” Ruby asked, ignoring the vicious fight below.

“You’re looking pretty alive,” Jaune retorted, giving her a confused look, and not much else.

“What?”

“We thought you were K.I.A. I’d show you but,” He pointed his radio at her, the gold screen with letters scrambled, like Ruby’s own comm, “yeah, not much to show there. Now if you excuse me, we have orders to follow,” he finished, ending the conversation, at least from his side.

“Negative, Jaune, we can’t do that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re going to kill them,” Ruby argued. She glanced at Robyn, who for whatever reason preferred to stay back and watch.

“Are you for real?” Jaune asked, mockingly. “You saw what they did. Every one of those empty buildings? The bodies at the rally? It’s thanks to them.” 

He let the words hang in the air, then offered a dark chuckle, looking at the fire.

“Remember our home? It’s all lifeless now,” he growled. Jaune stared at Robyn, then Ruby, and collected himself. “Even Pyrrha couldn’t save a _single_ person, Ruby. And we’ve been killing Grimm nonstop.”

“I’ve been fighting too, Jaune, I know,” Ruby contended, standing her ground.

Jaune paused, taking a step back.

“What do you think we should do then?” He urged..

“We arrest The Fang, it’s what heroes do,” Ruby offered.

“And put them where?” He snapped, resentment spilling from his words. “Wherever we take them, they’ll just break out. Beacon will be abandoning Berlin within the hour. We’ll have to learn somewhere else. It’s Ozpin’s orders, we’re cutting our losses.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that Jaune. I called the Protectorate, the American heroes. They’ll come here, just like they did back then.”

Jaune tightened the grip on his sword, but didn’t offer an argument. He took a deep breath, which couldn’t have been very nice, considering how close he was to the fire.

“You really think so?” he asked, after a long moment.

“I know it.”

“Then we’ll hold out just a little longer, and if they don’t, you won’t stop us, right?” he asked, after a moment of hesitation, although it felt more like a rhetorical question. “Nora! Alpha Mike Foxtrot! Now!”

“Epsilon Vera Bunnysmash!” Nora answered from below, striking Mercury’s stomach hard enough to send the man flying, then offered Jaune a thumbs up and a giggle.

Jaune slammed an armored palm to his face, frustrated.

“I’ll need to go down there to amp Nora. If she has a good charge by now It’ll be a big enough blast, I think it can knock them out for an hour, at least,” he clarified.

“Nice, you guys figured out what your power gives to Nora?” Ruby asked, loading a cartridge into her taser.

“You’ll see,” Jaune said, hooking the rappel gear he had on his belt to the back of the building. It was brand new equipment given to Team Juniper, thanks to their status. As soon as he landed, the hook collapsed and retracted into the belt within seconds.

“I really hoped you kids wouldn’t have to go through something like this,” Robyn murmured. 

Ruby saw her pained expression but didn’t answer. Instead she used her power, taking Robyn with her.

The world faded into heat signatures again, but something was wrong. The heat underneath the parking lot had increased, and it wasn’t coming from the burning helicopters.

As soon as she landed next to Jaune, the concrete shuddered with a morbid, deep sound, followed by cracks sprawling across the pavement.

All fighting stopped, as the flames suddenly went out.

She glanced at the helicopters, and didn’t like what she saw. The metal bent and twisted, a dark fluid expanded from itself, pulling and knitting the vehicles closer. It enveloped them like it had a mind of its own, and hardened in no less than a second. 

Assembling the three into one loosely human, partially reptilian form, every cockpit was smashed into where a head should be, and three tails braided into one. It spun the rotor blades on it’s shoulder, this time taking flight with deadly intent.

In a split second, a skeletal limb sprung from it, using a blade to cut the nearest mercenary in half, then each half once more. Not satisfied with the following spur of blood, it cut down another merc from forehead to abdomen, then dragged the pieces inside. 

Ruby looked away from the grinding of flesh and bone against steel. Whatever happened to the body when inside was best left ignored.

Nora fired at it, trying to draw it’s attention, yet more limbs sprung using pieces from the hulls, still connected to it by a thin black membrane. More blades to cut with.

“Oh great, an infested chopper,” Ruby said, and as if that was their cue, mercenaries gunned it, running for their lives. 

Mercury tried to kick Nora, who used the chaingun to block the oncoming strikes. Emerald reached for a pistol on the ground, only to be disarmed by Ren, who pulled a combat knife from his belt and slashed the firearm away with surprising strength. Ren jumped away, just in time for the Grimm’s tail to strike between both of them.

He ran to Robyn, taking the future mayor by the hand and running behind Nora.

Neo teleported to Torchwick’s side with a flash of light. That would be a no-go. 

Ruby’s hand snapped to Robyn’s crossbow, ripping the arbalest from her hands, and firing the bolt at Neopolitan. The bolt hit Neo, forcing the teleporting runt to the ground in a fit of spasms that followed the periodic clicks and snaps. 

Torchwick screamed the villain’s name, and Ruby didn’t allow herself to think about it or the other mercenaries marked by the Grimm aircraft. She fired an electrified bolt at Torchwick, and after it hit, fired two more.

Jaune ran towards them, touching Nora’s shoulder as soon as he reached her. A brief glow pulsed from his hand into Nora’s shoulder, lighting up her veins.

Nora pressed both palms together, then separated them in something of a reverse clap, releasing a pink arch, a shockwave that grew the longer it travelled, and knocked out mercenaries, villains and Grimm alike.

The Grimm merely stumbled in it’s flight, it was afflicted, but it would recover faster than anyone present.

Ruby decided to use the time to analyze, so she wasted no time rupturing into petals, flying to the top of a bullet-ridden building, to better see the creature. Halfway through, three things caught her attention;

First, the heat underneath the pavement persisted. Something lurked underneath..

Second, a pair of motorcycles sped down the road, towards the fight.

Third, the temperature was dropping. Fast.

Fog covered the parking lot, and ice cracks materialized atop the infested chopper in a large circle, familiar to Ruby. From it, an immense humanoid armor pushed through, armed with a sword that matched its size.

Ruby landed on a nearby, bullet-ridden building, just in time to see the knight come to life with an eruption of snow, the frost circle that summoned it quickly faded away. The knight jumped atop the Grimm chopper, stabbing the sword through its chest and pinning the creature to the ground.

Helicopter blades retaliated, six of them stabbing into the knight’s chest, and two others attempted to stab the arms, only to be grappled by the ice giant. Mist spilled from the armor, partially freezing the black coating that made the grimm.

A motorcycle stopped near the parking lot, and Ruby recognized Weiss and Yang right away. The other wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and after looking around, Ruby noticed a man in blue and gold armor flying close, only slightly above the buildings.

She knew who he was. Everyone knew who that hero was. _The_ Hero, leader of the Protectorate.

He let something loose from his belt, and as the gold dots floated around him with the hum of a tuning fork, detached a rifle from his back.

It was a blue rifle that belonged some thousands of years in the future, until it reconfigured itself, pieces shifting in unison, becoming something more akin to a grenade launcher. The dots around him loaded themselves into the gun on their own, without him moving a muscle.

He fired, each shot leaving a gold trail behind. The first hit the grimm, and at first, it had no effect. Then, it trembled and convulsed, as pieces collapsed into itself. First the blades, then the cockpits. Next the dark fluid that covered it bubbled and melted away into a pond. Despite the destruction, it left the knight unharmed.

The other shots guided themselves towards villains and mercenaries below, enveloping them in bubble forcefields.

Just like that, he ended the fight like it was nothing. 

No, not over yet. Something still lurked underneath them. Hero was flying down, and she shouted, to get his attention.

“Underground! There’s something big, under the parking lot!” Ruby announced.

“I noticed it, yeah,” Hero replied, serious. The golden bubbles that arrested villains below moved on their own, away from the center of the park.

He fired at the ground, and Ruby was expecting a big explosion. Instead, the already cracked pavement unfolded like paper, revealing a pulsating mass of flesh, bone, concrete and piping. The massive organ was connected to and pulsating from the sewers below.

Before she could take a closer look, he fired again, reducing it to a smear on the ground.

Team Juniper, alongside Robyn, gathered below to see into the crater. Hero floated down, and Ruby used her power, the storm of petals making its way to Weiss and Yang.

Weiss wasn’t wearing her mask anymore. It worried Ruby for a brief moment, she knew Weiss didn’t like people seeing her scar. Losing an eye had been a big deal.

“Weiss, Yang! Oh it’s so good to see you!” Ruby announced, taking Weiss’ hands and jumping in place.

“Same here sis. Guess who we found on our way?” Yang informed.

“You mean Hero?” Ruby asked. “Yeah I really didn’t expect them to send the big ones our way,”

“Not just him. Look up,” Weiss said.

Ruby looked, and who knows how many meters above saw a U-bahn train cart, held up by someone she couldn’t see. 

“It’s Alexandria! Can you believe it?” Yang chirped, and Ruby couldn’t stop her heartbeat from quickening.

“Not just Alexandria. Pyrrha, Blake and Cinder are in there,” Weiss expounded. “From what they told us, they’ve already defeated Cinder, and it seems like it was pretty bloody.” 

“She got off easy if you ask me,” Yang huffed.

Bloody. Why is it that even now, after everything Cinder did, Ruby still didn’t like the idea?

Alexandria slowly flew down to the street, carefully depositing the train cart with delicacy Ruby didn’t really expect someone who could casually haul vehicles to be capable of. She had an air of elegance, moving with her back straight and chin raised.

Ruby could see Cinder inside, alongside Pyrrha. She was out cold, and so hurt they had to strip Cindy of her dress, down to her boxers and bra, to properly tend to the wounds. Some cuts were knitted shut with a metallic looking string, likely something the traitor herself did, like she normally would in the field. Blake was still suturing some of them, and Pyrrha stood nearby, handling something inside the first aid kit.

Ruby didn’t know whether she should feel angry or sad. In times like this she wished she could be like Weiss and turn her heart to stone, just for today. 

“Ruby?” Weiss called, snapping her back to the moment.

She still had a lot to update her team on. About The Fang, about Leo’s betrayal, about Robyn, but she put it out of her mind, and walked to Torchwick, who had already recovered from the bolts she fired at him. Weiss and Yang followed, Weiss mostly because Ruby still held onto her hand.

“End of the road, Torchwick,” Ruby scolded, moving close to the gold forcefield. “You’re going to tell us everything you know.”

“Oh but that wouldn’t be a very fair deal, would it, Red?” Torchwick mocked, over-dramatic cane spin punctuating his sentence. “You see, I think information is very valuable, why would I just give it to you for free?”

“Sure, a deal,” Ren said, from the middle of Team Juniper. “We can negotiate between a lifetime sentence, or _two_ lifetimes.”

Tochwick was about to reply, but Alexandria walked towards him, and the villain went silent. Her dark gray and black costume was covered in grime and dirt. Ruby and Weiss moved out of her way in what felt like pure survival instinct.

Ruby didn’t miss the ensuing frown that spread across Hero’s face, as the hero in blue and gold armor put himself between her, Weiss and Alexandria, crossing his arms. Tall as he might be, the armor made him even taller, gave him presence that Weiss could only dream of achieving one day.

"Alexandria, that's enough."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a chapter I've been dying to write since I started this story, specially Ruby and her power. She's an interesting character to write, almost as much as Alexandria and Hero.


	5. Aria of Deceit

The Leader of the Protectorate put himself between them and Alexandria. 

With the combination of his stature, armor the Americans were calling ‘tinkertech’ and armaments that could likely win a war single handedly, he looked grandiose. Less like a mere man and more like a monument.

So why did it feel like it just wasn’t enough? 

The heroine in black strut towards him, but a chill ran up Weiss’ spine and crawled into her brain. The same touch of fear she felt near Grimm, yet she kept those emotions from the surface, hard as it was without the mask to hide her missing eye.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Alexandria inquired.

Hero didn’t budge, and the world around them went dead silent. Team Juniper, Villains and mercenaries alike all went silent, waiting for his answer, although Weiss didn’t know if it was attentio or a power in play.

“You already know the answer,” he replied. Turning on his feet, Hero pointed at Cinder, and Weiss could hear what she could only assume was engines inside the mechanical armor working as he lifted his right arm. The sound was faint, almost inaudible, but reminded her of bells and chimes striking to the same tune, serene.

But with her one good eye Weiss could still see signs. 

Ruby was hunched over a bit, the fights took a toll on her body. She didn’t lift her rifle or walk with the same pep she usually did. Likewise, the Hero in front of her didn’t move like the man she saw on TV. The right arm moved almost like a machine, just a little bit too fast and firm. His neck was a little stiff, because he moved his torso even through just turning his head would have been enough.

“When you said a villain was fought and captured,” He continued, “I didn’t expect her to be captured halfway down the golden tunnel. Care to explain why?” 

Weiss couldn’t see his face, but she could feel the animosity. Could even understand it, in a way, when so much was still a question mark. Resorting to nearly killing, even in a situation like this felt like villain material.

_Just a feeling._

“She’s a villain and she resisted arrest. She had to be subdued, and Pyrrha did so,” Alexandria answered, her tone measured, every word stated as fact. 

Maybe in a way it was true. From the way Blake looked like she had seen a ghost, and seeing Cinder’s state, she might as well have been looking at one. 

“Subdued into having one foot in a grave?” Hero challenged, then turned towards Blake allowing sound to return to the world around them, how had he done that? “You, you’re Blake, right? I recommend you start chest compressions _now_. Her pulse just went silent.”

Blake’s eyes widened as she put a finger to Cinder’s throat. Interlocking fingers she began chest compressions

“Something went wrong, and I need to know what,” The Leader of the Protectorate demanded.

_Something went wrong alright, years ago. It’s the small things that get us._

Maybe Weiss could have done something, said anything when she noticed how lonely, empty and so very prone to lashing out Cinder became during the project. Without a team and in a project she never wanted to be a part of in the first place, relegated to an empty dorm room that became silent after months. Weiss hadn't said anything back then, it made her see the weakness of her old self in a different person, from a different perspective.

Her chest felt heavy thinking about that. She elected to ignore it, even now.

Instead, she focused on the knight. It couldn’t stand still for too long, or else it would be freezing everyone solid soon enough. She dismissed it, letting it crumble into snow.

Inside the train cart, Blake tilted Cinder’s head, pinched the nose shut and gave her mouth-to-mouth. Delivering rescue breaths, she did so twice and continued with chest compressions, using her body weight.

Alexandria pursed her lips, and even though the visor obscured her eyes, Weiss knew the heroine was staring into Hero’s. She’d seen that same posture in Cinder. 

“She’ll live. Blake is keeping a steady hundred and twenty compressions per minute since you warned her.”

“What about the blood loss?” he questioned. “She was going silent even before her heart stopped.”

“We can get an emergency transfusion.”

“Can’t help but notice you’re dodging the question.” Hero protested, crossing his arms.

Ruby squeezed her hand. Right, they still had a lot of work to do. Robyn had her hands on their shoulders, softly pulling them away from the two heroes, much like Winter would have done back at home, during the… difficult days.

Weiss hated the contact, but appreciated the gesture.

Ruby still hadn’t said a word. When she looked at Cinder earlier, Weiss could see the gears moving in her head. They walked closer to the duo of heroes, and Weiss would be lying if she said it wasn’t Ruby’s hand that kept her moving forward. 

Hero turned to look at them, how did he know they were walking towards him? As she walked closer, Weiss had to slightly tilt her head upwards to look him in the eye. The visor that covered his eyes anyways.

It was Ruby who broke the silence.

“You both know Blake will need a full psychiatric workup after this, right?

“Not just Blake,” Yang remarked, away from them, “Pyrr-” 

“And,” Ruby continued, emphasizing the word to cut off her sister, “we still need to find Leo Schmidt. I’m positive Team Juniper can keep the prisoners under control, if worse comes to worst.”

“Ruby and Weiss, correct?” Hero asked, uncrossing his arms.

“Correct,” Weiss answered. 

Inside the train cart, Cinder came to life with a heavy gasp. Blake’s work there was done for now, but how long had she gone without oxygen? Thirty seconds? Minutes? Weiss couldn’t tell. A detail for later.

“Okay,” Hero continued, looking back from the resuscitation, “to help here I need to get things in order. I see Robyn is safe, that’s some great work on your part.”

“Yang will keep her company. Can we talk in the cart?” Weiss asked. “I’m not very comfortable talking about teammates out here in the open” she lied. She’d never give away vital information to anyone, not unless inside Beacon's walls. 

Ruby would know that. She knew a lot, from the way she was about to interrogate Torchwick on the spot. It wouldn’t be like her to do that without some knowledge of her own.

“Sure, I’ll need to ask your teammate some questions, if that’s okay,” Hero said, as he gestured an open hand, pointing towards the cart, “About what happened a few minutes ago.”

“That’s alright,” Ruby approved. “She seems really off her game.”

Hero prepared to move as they walked, but he stood back and said something to Alexandria, for her ears only, considering how Weiss couldn’t hear a single whisper, despite their proximity.

Ruby was the first to walk into the vehicle alongside Weiss, Hero only a couple of steps back. His every movement accompanied by the faint hum of machinery that hid beneath the blue and gold armor.

Cinder was stretched along the foldable seats, with Blake sitting, or rather collapsed on the floor just beside her, still breathing heavily and in dire need of a hug. Blake had rolled up the sleeves of her gear, and her arms were up to the elbows in blood, some had even smudged her face. 

She looked so tired, drained even. Pyrrha was much of the same, and she walked out without a word, to be with her team.

“How is she?” Ruby asked, softly.

“Keeps losing consciousness, “Blake replied, looking up at them. “Vomited twice during the interrogation, almost died just now, but you already know that. There’s some memory loss in there too, she kept repeating things she had already told us.”

“So,” Blake added, “all in all she’s looking better than the people at the rally.”

 _Goddamnit Blake._ Weiss scowled at the mention of the rally. She was trying to keep that out of her mind for now, but it was unlikely she could. Even thinking about it she could taste the air in her breath, the concrete dust and fire left after the explosions.

Pyrrha had been there, front and center when it first happened. The Number One Meister, powerless as people were blasted in droves. 

“Okay,” Hero sighed. “She should be stable for a while, as far as I can pick up.” 

He sat in front of Blake, a couple of steps away, probably to avoid invading her space but still attempting to reach out, tact that Weiss certainly appreciated.

“So, Blake, Tell me what happened down there, please? How did things go this far” He continued, raising his hand slightly to point at Cinder.

Blake looked at Weiss, then Ruby for confirmation, who gave her a nod. She recounted the fake transmissions, the accusations that Robyn had powers, the fight in the subway, and subsequent travel.

Robyn, the candidate for Mayor of Berlin having powers. Preposterous, something she’d have to go back to later.

“And that was it?” he asked

“Yeah... Cinder was badly hurt even before we got there, but… Nevermind.”

“But what, Blake?” Weiss pushed.

“But,” Blake struggled, “by the end it was like she didn’t even want to fight anymore. Alexandria just said a few things and it was over, she broke.”

Blake stopped for a moment. What for, Weiss didn’t know. Maybe she was sorting the information in her head. Hopefully. Conspicuously, she didn’t mention what it was that Alexandria said.

“We asked her what The Fang wanted,” Blake continued, bringing the hand over one eye as she brushed her bangs out of her face. It smeared more blood on her face, and Weiss wished she could come closer to wipe it off.

“I had to suture some cuts,” Blake continued, hunching over. “She said… said she didn’t want to be used anymore. Fuck, that wasn’t supposed to sound wrong, it just is. Fuck, this is harder than I thought it would be.”

“Blake, you’re losing focus,” Ruby called, and Blake opened her eyes to look at her. Of course Ruby did that, she was probably handling this better than Weiss herself. After a few seconds and a deep breath, Blake continued.

“She also said Leo had leverage to keep us Meisters from chasing after she deserted. He was the one that told her about Ozpin backing Robyn, and that he was going to expose it all. Pyrrha was mad that she betrayed us, but then Cinder vomited, and-”

“Leo?” Weiss cut Blake off, partially confused, “But he’s the one we have to rescue.”

“Actually, at ground zero,” Ruby explained, “when The Fang tried to kidnap Robyn, after they took out the lights, I couldn’t help but notice Leo wasn’t kidnapped. He ran away with them, after they started blowing stuff up.”

Great, so they couldn’t even count on things being straight forward now. Could they even count on Ozpin? That a candidate was prepared to risk his career for something like this was strange, but even more so is the possibility that Ozpin had something to hide. With students like Weiss, Ruby and Team Juniper, it was hard to deny that the man held a significant amount of power.

“Well, that complicates things,” Hero remarked. “Did she mention what that leverage is, besides possible blackmail?”

“No, that’s the point where she started vomiting, and I had to help hold her gu-”

“I think it’s the Grimm swarm.” Weiss shared, if partially to keep the questioning from trailing back into such a subject. “They never made any demands, but they only appeared once we got too close to beating The Fang, remember, Ruby?”

“But why couldn't they keep it under control?” Ruby asked.

“Maybe they could. It evolves, you saw it yourself,” Weiss pointed towards the ruined helicopters with her thumb. “Maybe it evolved out of control.”

“We noticed there was something underground, a mix of an organ and a capsule.” Ruby continued. “Could be where they spawn from, the first one we fought came from underground”

“That could be it,” Hero added, “at least it could be a weak spot. Maybe they buried through the sewers, because the U-bahn network doesn’t reach this district.”

“I’ve been keeping my eyes out, just in case there are more, but those ultrasound waves are still going, and my blockers are short range, temporary, and it only works on a few devices for now.”

He paused for a second, before continuing, “The Protectorate is doing the best we can at containing the swarm, but right now this is making everything go at a fraction of the speed it should.”

Ruby waved Robyn and Yang over, then asked them to lean forward, so she could whisper in their ears. What for, Weiss didn’t know. She looked out the window, searching out of habit.  
  
Outside, Alexandria was questioning a still forcefield-bound Torchwick, alongside Team Juniper. Her arms were folded, and for a brief moment Weiss was glad that the superheroine was occupied instead of waiting outside the cart. Something about her didn’t sit right, top dog or not.

Unfair, perhaps, but her eye rarely missed things. 

Her teammate and presumably friend didn’t seem to have a very high opinion of her at the moment. Was she the reason Blake, Pyrrha and Cinder were in such a state? Maybe not, that would likely have happened with or without interference, considering how furious the losses at the rally made her. Shaking off the sensation still remained a difficult task, Alexandria had that presence, the oppressing ‘do my bidding or else’ aura.

 _Feels just like home._ Weiss let a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Maybe it was having an effect on her too.

“I have a plan,” Ruby announced, her smile shattered Weiss’ s train of thought.

“Me and my team know HQ better than most, and it’s our job to make sure Beacon stands, as much as a bunker like that can, anyways. If you can get us near our headquarters we can sweep the place. We’ll find whatever is jamming the signal.”

That was it? Her plan amounted to making a b-line to Meister HQ and looking for things? No, this couldn’t be.

“What?” Weiss protested. “That’s all you have? Break in, search for, and destroy something we don’t even know where it is, how it looks, and what it even is?”

“Adapting on the spot is a part of our job, isn’t it?” The redhead smiled at Weiss, a simple gesture that perhaps passed a message. 

“Beacon has so many floors, Ruby, there’s only four people in our team.”

“Just trust me Weiss, okay?” The girl pleaded, and Weiss considered that in silence. She had something else planned then, that had to be it.

Weiss sighed, but agreed with a nod, letting the others do talking for the moment. The invincible girl still called her attention, as did Alexandria. Unlike Cinder, she hadn’t noticed anything change within Pyrrha before.

Again her train of thought was stopped at a key juncture, this time by the American hero in blue and gold. “I’ve sent out a message to Legend, they’ll get us someone who can treat Cinder,” he explained, probably to lower the stress inside the cart. Good, Weiss hadn’t given the Americans enough credit.

Then he took notice of Ruby’s arsenal.

“I see that your rifle wasn’t modified, it’s custom built, chambering like that can take more than those javelins, is it modular?”

 _Oh no_ . He was talking about guns with _Ruby_. Big mistake, Weiss learned very early on in the project to avoid the subject entirely, it frustrated her how someone could have encyclopedic knowledge of different ways to discharge a projectile from a tube. As Ruby explained the ins and outs of the firepower carried by the oversized grappling hook prototype from ‘91 she so dearly called a ‘harpoon rifle’, Hero took off his helmet, revealing blonde hair.

 _Oh noo._ Not only there were two guns nuts within the same vicinity as her, there were two blondes too, if her experience was anything to go by-

“That is genius! I’ve tried the same thing with a prototype pair of jet boots once! You could even say I almost… shot myself in the foot.”

 _Oh nooo._ Hero puffed up his chest, looking way too amused with himself, Yang cackled at the shitty joke, and Weiss’s eye didn’t miss Blake’s chuckle. For a moment, she envied Cinder, if only because being out cold and at death’s door seemed like mercy. Thankfully, Robyn burying her face in her hands was at least an indication she hadn’t finally snapped and gone mad. Did they not see the gravity of the situation? Did Ruby not care about the betrayal suffered, or the state of an ex-teammate? The accusations against Robyn and the secrets Ozpin was seemingly holding from them?

Weiss took a moment to consider it all. It was definitely getting to her, and she couldn’t lie to herself about that. Worse than having a possibly unstable teammate alongside her was to _be_ that unstable teammate. Weiss leaned on a wall, slipping into her mind to take it all into perspective. Maybe Blake would need the distraction. Yang was with them and she was always a game-changer, always caring for others.

Maybe Weiss should too. The laughter died down, and Ruby was the first one to speak. The words she let out were something she expected, but still was somehow unprepared for. “We should get going. Beacon needs us.”

Yang offered Blake a hand, to help her stand. “Yes, we should. The Grimm aren’t just going to beat themselves up.” She smirked at the brunette to her side, eliciting a smirk.

Hero cleared his throat, and all eyes turned to him. “Are you sure you want to do this all on your own? We can send someone with you.”

“If you have someone who could teleport us that’d be great” Yang said.

“I’ll send a message to Legend.”

One by one, they left, until there was only Weiss, Hero, and Cinder. She looked at Cinder, or more accurately Cindy, especially now that she was stripped of her dress. It was good to know the turncoat at least had the moral sense not to release something like the Grimm in Berlin. On the other hand, for how frustrating the lack of a resolution was Weiss certainly felt it taunted her deductive reasoning far more than anything else had.

If only Cinder was the one who released it. To find a villain and cut them down to bring order back to their home would be quite the tale, unfortunately, or rather fortunately it seemed like Cinder’s fate was something else. To wish someone else had killed the right person didn’t sit well with Weiss either.

“Something on your mind?”

 _Oh._ She’d spent too much time there, staring at a half naked ex-Meister, and that couldn’t have looked good from the outside.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to say anything. I'm kind of stalling a serious conversation myself.”

“Actually, I was wondering, when you stopped Alexandria earlier, why did you do it?”

He sighed once more. Folding his arms and looking out the window, his expression serious as he glanced at the superheroine in black that still interrogated Torchwick’s group, The Fang. 

“Well, when she walked towards you, what did you feel? Be honest.”

“I… was kind of afraid, actually. I thought I did something wrong.”

Could she be honest with him? He was the greatest hero she’d ever know, but he wasn’t Ruby, Blake or Yang. In a way, she could rationalize bending the truth a little, but an honest answer required trust, and she needed answers.

“Nope,” He said, “You didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t think Alex does it on purpose but I saw the impact she had on your friends, and the person she said they ‘captured’ was nearly sent to the other side. I had to do something.”

“So it was that? A feeling?”

“I guess you could say that,” He chuckled. “When you look at your ex-teammate there do you like what you see?”

“No, I don’t. I wasn’t even there to fight her but I feel like I failed somewhere.”

“Well then you’re not alone. I hate hearing heartbeats stop. Hero, villain, civilian, it always sounds the same.”

“It seems like Cindy already had... ‘one foot in the grave’ as you said earlier, even before Pyrrha, Blake and Alexandria got to her.”

“I still know that there’s a piece missing, I’ve seen what Alex can do. This one time we were fighting Mechatronix in the middle of the pacific ocean. As soon as I figured out a stabilizing field to keep a nearby cargo freighter in one piece she took down a walking reactor. It was like paper. I can make sense of villains that uproot nuclear plants, I can take on bad guys that make Einstein-Rosen bridges just to walk out of a bank with sacks of money, I can even whip up something to track, neutralize and arrest them within a minute, but I can’t figure her out.”

“So, you don’t trust her?”

He shook his head, then turned back to Weiss

“No, I’ve trusted her with my life more times than I can count, and I’ll trust her until the day I retire. I guess you can chalk it up to a disagreement between friends.”

“Come on Weiss, let’s go!” Yang shouted. Hero offered a smile and tilted his head towards her teammate, a nonverbal encouragement. Weiss felt relief wash through her, perhaps it was the knowledge that even two demigods like Hero and Alexandria had their own personal squabbles, or maybe it was because the simplicity of ‘go to Beacon and look for an unidentified device, person or Grimm’ was a welcome change, but her mind felt clearer than it had in hours.

***

They arrived on the Alexanderplatz, face to face with the building that served as an entrance to the bunker, something akin to a medieval fortress if it had been built by modern day engineers. Grey concrete was decorated with their green emblem, a pair of crossed axes surrounded by a laurel wreath. The reinforced steel gate that marked the end of the concrete fence, spotlights and watchtowers surrounding the school still held. Tall as they were, enough so that one could stand atop an upright bus and still not reach the top of the gates, they wouldn’t be a problem. Getting in would be the easy part. For the first time since they were a team, there was no life to the place, no tourists, officers, visiting teams or reporters. 

And no Grimm in sight. Strange as it was, that seemed like the worst detail.

Hero had sent them in, but not without earpieces of their own. Certainly a more advanced and practical measure than the radios provided by the Meister project, without the frivolous, and frankly, expensive measure of displaying a live ranking of who were the best students.

“So, only six floors to sweep, not counting the research, training, panic, command and Ozpn’s floors. This is gonna suck,” Blake acknowledged. Good, someone else was as well rooted in reality as Weiss. 

“Every beginning is hard,” Ruby retorted.

“I’d say it’s almost too easy,” Yang remarked, walking up to the steel bars that, given the scale of the gate, were closer to construction beams or pillars. She struck the pillar twice, driving elbow strikes into the same spot with eerie precision and bending the metal as if it was clay. She drove her fingers into the crater, then tore the section of the pillar out, creating an opening for them.

“You know that’s unnecessary collateral damage right?” Weiss assured, annoyed at her teammate’s trigger-happy attitude, then mentally berated herself for taking a page from both Ruby _and_ Yang’s book of jokes.

“It’s also, as the Americans say, badass” walking into the asphalt and grass patio.

“You’re getting way too many ideas from them,”

“Put a lid on it, both of you,” Ruby ordered, before bursting into petals, moving past them and quickly reforming herself in the patio. “I’m picking up a lot of heat signals, and I don’t think they’re friend-”

Ruby’s eyes widened as she interrupted herself to tackle Weiss to the ground. From her blind spot, her missing left eye, a fiery sphere arched overhead, then detonated as it hit one of Beacon’s walls. Where did it come from? The wall?

“It’s an ambush! The place is brimming with Grimm!” Ruby shouted, drawing a pistol and firing back. On the watchtower, Weiss could see the shape, but the dark of nighttime and crippling lack of an eye made it hard to distinguish. Bat wings? But, they were too big, almost the size of a car each, and it seemed to have the body of a lion. 

_A Manticore._ Weiss tried to take in as many details as she could, black fur, head and limbs covered in a bony white armor. It prowled, stepping carefully atop the wall, it’s pupils glowed in the dark.

Weiss hurried herself upright, just in time for the Grimm to fire again, this time releasing a stream of fire. It missed her, but the heat alone nearly hurt. The team scattered, Ruby used her power to evade the attack and reposition, This time drawing her rifle - the normal rifle, not the harpoon contraption- and firing two shots. Both shots hit the beast square on its chest, causing it to recoil in pain, and the stream to wobble. 

Blake pulled a combat knife and extended a hand while running closer to the fire, she went limp, becoming a duplicate as soon as the heat was bad enough to hurt, and reappeared on the Grimm’s back, stabbing it on the nape of the neck over and over, forcing the beast to stop the incendiary breath

“Freezerburn, take that thing down!” Ruby shouted, having stopped the suppressing fire, mostly likely not to ruin Blake’s positioning.

Ruby had Weiss’s attention on the first word. She adjusted to focus on her power, but not to summon a knight. No, that would be if there were multiple enemies fighting Yang. This was so they could take advantage of what happened _while_ Weiss summoned her creations, the fog and cold that both her and Yang were immune to, so they could take away it's sight. Within moments, it covered the whole patio, from the gates to the Academy.

The Manticore threshed, clawed at it's back and jumped. In attempting to remove Blake from its back it luncged downwards. Yang rushed to meet the beast midair, striking the snout with a bycicle kick, Weiss herself only aware of the fact because she could see through the fog. Blake jumped off, rolling as she touched the ground.

The Grimm attempted to breathe fire once more, yet the blonde wrapped her arms around it’s mouth in a hold, then tightened with strength that invoked the imagery of car crushers. Bone cracked under pressure as Yang lifted the Grimm off the ground, and crashed it back down twice, hard enough to crack the asphalt the first time, and sink both into the ground the next. As it sat dazed, the blonde forced the jaw open as far as it would go, then she spread it _further_ , tearing the beast in two and whipping both parts on the ground with a triumphant roar.

Weiss dismissed the fog as Yang rejoined them, “Breathing fire, wings, ambushes. They’re still evolving,” she continued, considering their current disadvantage.

Ruby scanned their surroundings, “Let’s move on, it seems like Beacon is running on generators, and there’s no way in hell we’re taking the elevator”

The headquarters main hall was… different than how it _should_ have been, the reality of which made Weiss’s heart skip a beat. Lights flickered, the vaulted ceiling that reminded Weiss of cathedrals had a hole in it, the green banners that covered the walls bore bloodstains, others were torn, and most were riddled with gunfire, same for the marble floor. Surprisingly - or rather unsurprisingly - the giant screen that displayed the Leaderboard was intact, if only stained at the top, where a corpse had presumably been hurled before being devoured by Grimm. It still presented Team RWBY as killed in action. Equipment was still left behind. A rifle here, handcuffs there, pistol rounds spilled from a magazine. The main desk - one that wouldn't have felt out of place in a police station- was rubble, reinforced concrete was demolished, ravaged, broken with a bloodied breach. 

State of the art bulletproof Glass might as well not have been there. 

Guards like David or Silvana would have been there around this time. She’d miss them. Unless Ozpin acted soon enough to get everyone to the panic floor?

“Weiss? Weiss are you listening?”

 _Oh._ Who asked that? It was Yang, definitely Yang. She turned to face the blonde, “I’m sorry, I kind of spaced out.”

“Well, I figured as much, you were doing the ‘on standby’ routine.”

“It’s okay Yang,” Ruby cut in. “In short, we need to pick up the pace. Time to show these Grimm what makes team RWBY the best!” she smiled, the dolt.


End file.
